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GRANNIE 











THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
DALLAS • ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO. t Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 


GRANNIE 


BY 

MRS. GEORGE WEMYSS 

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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1914 



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COPTHIGHT, 1914 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Set up and ElectrotypecL Published March," 1914 


MAR 19 1314 TV 


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GRANNIE 


i 

“It’s going to be your birthday, grannie/’ said 
Putts one day, and I said undoubtedly it was, 
because birthdays come to grandmothers with 
surprising regularity and so quickly, one after 
the other, as positively to jostle. 

“Will you promise to use what I am going to 
give you, faithfully promise?” he asked. 

“Faithfully promise.” 

“Even when you don’t know what it’s going 
to be?” 

“Even when I don’t know what it’s going to 
be.” 

“And you don’tV ’ — this anxiously. 

“Not in the very least,” I assured him. 

“And mine too? Sa-ay yes,” pleaded Bounce, 
aged four. 

“Yours too, Bounce.” 

“It’s a bwotter!” she shrieked, unable any 
longer to bear the burden of secrecy. 


1 


GRANNIE 


“There you’ve been and gone and done it,” 
said Putts in despair. And Bounce, with all the 
bounce gone out of her, turned her face to the 
wall and wept bitterly. 

“Grannies being very very old people are nearly 
always deaf, Bounce my darling,” I whispered, 
and that comforted her. 

“Vill you use it? Say yes,” she sobbed softly. 

“Yes, yes!” 

“Plomise!” 

“I promise. Twice, three times every day.” 
And Bounce, having little conception of the short- 
lived if absorbing joy of blotting-paper, jumped 
for joy. 

“Sail we play mad bulls now,” she said. “Say 
yes!” But the matter of presents was still to be 
discussed. 

“You needn’t use mine, darling,” said Patricia, 
which showed her to be older than Put^ts by at 
least ten years, and than Bounce by much more 
than Bounce could count. Putts could count a 
good long way, and backwards, which accomplish- 
ment filled Bounce with envy, awe and sadness. 
“Putts is a kevver boy,” she once said. “He can 
count one, two, three, four, five, six — Bounce 
can’t” 


2 


GRANNIE 


Well, the birthday came, and with it my doubts 
were dispelled. Patricia gave me a pen, Bounce 
a blotter, and Putts a pig with a shamrock leaf 
in its mouth, which mouth, when widely opened, 
gave access to a very small ink-bottle. Its exist- 
ence not the very most astute grandmother in the 
world would have suspected had it not been (as 
Bowles, our parlourmaid, reminded me) the exact 
“faxismile” of the one he had given me the year 
before. I did not tell her it was a coincidence 
which to a grandmother is by no means a re- 
markable one. I was grateful too for the word 
faxismile. So I said nothing. 

From Guy, another grandson, I had the written 
promise of a present. In a letter he said: If I 
was going to be so jolly decent as to send him a 
pound, like I always did, and would send it by 
return, instead of on his birthday, which was such 
a jolly long way off, he would buy me an awfully 
jolly sort of an air pistole he had seen. It wasn’t 
really a pistole, so I needn’t be afraid. But I 
could squirt things at chaps — ink if I liked — 
which would be awfully good fun, if I wasn’t too 
old for that sort of thing. And I could lend it 
to him in the holidays — he promised faithfully 
to give it back. If I didn’t like the idea of the 

3 


GRANNIE 


pistole I wasn’t to bother: but I could order 
myself something at Harrod’s and when he got 
my pound he would pay me back. Did I see? 
Anyhow he wished me a jolly lot of returns. 

He added a postscript to say there was a beastly 
little new boy who cried all day, and whenever 
he saw a master or the matron he besought them 
to send him home. He threw himself at their 
feet — rotten little beast. 

I felt Guy’s letter required careful answering; 
but before setting myself to do it I put on my 
hat and stepped out into the golden sunshine 
of the garden. I did not want a hat; but I put 
it on because, in honour of the day, it had been 
retrimmed. The position of the bow constituted 
the change; I hoped I might remember from 
what position to which position it had been 
shifted on this my birthday. I imagined the bow 
was meant to look out upon the new year from 
the exact middle front of my hat, and so I accord- 
ingly placed it. 

I went straight to that part of the garden 
where I knew I should find old Speedwell, our 
gardener. I found him; busy as usual. With 
every birthday he becomes more bent, dear old 

4 


GRANNIE 


man; but his heart must right itself because it 
always remains where it ought to be. At my 
coming he raised himself, so far as he was able, 
to doubt whether the day would last — his old 
eyes blinking to the sun as he gave utterance to 
his doubts. There has never been a birthday of 
mine during the last forty-eight years that Speed- 
well has trusted to last, yet it comes with June 
of every year and is invariably fine. 

"It’s my birthday, Speedwell.” 

“Yes, ma’am, it be.” 

“We are getting old, Speedwell.” 

“Yes, ma’am, I shouldn’t be surprised.” 

“My grandchildren have sent me beautiful 
presents.” 

“Yes, ma’am, they would.” 

“Master Putts has sent me a pig.” 

“Yes, ma’am, he would — well, I wouldn’t have 
thought for a pig exacterly.” 

“Well, it’s really an inkpot and it has a sham- 
rock leaf in its mouth — the pig I mean.” 

“Yes, ma’am, it would.” 

“Now, Speedwell, why should it?” 

“Well, come to look into it, ma’am, why 
shouldn’t it? — a pig is none too particular, and 
an Irish pig ” 


5 


GRANNIE 


“And Miss Bounce a blotter," I added hastily, 
being half Irish myself. 

“That's good," he admitted. 

“And Miss Patricia a pen." 

“There’s sense in that to such as can use it." 

“And lots of others, Speedwell." 

“So I should say, ma’am." 

Then Speedwell, bending still lower, made dili- 
gent search for something between the cool, dark 
leaves of a plant, and having made out that it 
was difficult to find, he withdrew from its hiding- 
place a tight, round, hard bunch of roses. “And 
old Speedwell’s, ma’am," he said, tendering it. 

“Ah, Speedwell, thank you, thank you, the 
nicest of all my presents." 

“And the one you least thought to get, ma’am," 
said the old man with a twinkle. 

“How many does it make?" I asked, laughing. 

“The bookey, ma’am? the forty-eighth — count- 
ing Winthorpe and this foolish Anne’s place (this 
was Speedwell’s version of ‘Anne’s Folly,’ the 
name of our house). Counting the roses," he 
continued, “one thousand four hundred and forty 
— and that pink bud I broke off by carelessness, 
forty-one. One thousand four hundred and 
forty-one — and all smellers." 

6 


GRANNIE 


“Flowers are wonderful things, Speedwell.” 

“They be that, ma’am; they take plenty of 
care, planting, watering and tending — God gives 
the increase.” 

“And you give God the glory?” I suggested. 

“Some of it, ma’am.” 

Dear old Speedwell. He may be obstinate 
and pig-headed and dour and difficult, but he 
is none the less dear for all that, and he rakes 
out the footsteps of the grandchildren on the 
newly sown flower-beds, which as a younger man 
he never did for my children. With age has 
come understanding, and the heart of a grand- 
mother needs that, for there is very little reason 
in it and no logic. 

I went indoors and I wrote to Guy, thanking 
him very much for thinking of giving me the 
“pistole,” but said I would rather he spent my 
present on something for himself, and begged him 
to be kind to the new little boy, who no doubt 
was a dear little chap, and devoted to his mother. 

Then, in order to test still further the excellence 
of Patricia’s pen, the absorbent properties of 
Bounce’s blotter and the blueness of the ink in 
Putts’ bottle, I wrote a long letter to one Jordan 
Rivers. That it was a letter impossible to send 

7 


GRANNIE 


I knew. I knew also that it is not the letters 
women write that matter, but rather those they 
post. I had no intention of posting this one. It 
will be seen at once that it was not a letter I 
could send to a comparatively young, and almost 
unknown, bachelor. 

“Dear Jordan, — You ask me if I remember 
you tumbling downstairs? I have happier rec- 
ollections of you. Perhaps you remember that 
I picked you up, that I was kind to you? I make 
bold enough to believe so, for it would explain, 
just a little, the depth of the affection you say 
you feel for me. Otherwise do I deserve it? You 
hope I am well and happy? I am very well and 
I am very happy. I have known great sorrow. 
But the older I grow the more I see that sorrow 
and happiness go hand in hand all the days of 
one’s life. The happier one is the greater is the 
sorrow of separation bound to be when the object 
of our great happiness is taken from us. 

“Now, Jordan, to be completely happy a woman 
can be a wife, may be a mother, but must be a 
grandmother. If she can at the same time fill 
each capacity she may count herself among the 
immortals. 

8 


GRANNIE 


“If the moment when into the grandmother’s 
arms is placed her first grandchild lacks the 
splendour of that sublime moment when at her 
side was laid her first-born son, it has a glory of 
its own. If in those long-ago days she had meant 
to be a good mother, she must have said to her 
poor, tired little self, Tlease God of this child I 
shall make a good man.’ 

“But the same good little mother grown to 
grandmother’s estate, on taking her first grand- 
son into her outstretched arms, whispers exul- 
tantly to her beating heart, ‘Here is a man-child, 
let me spoil him! All I could do I did for his 
father, now it is my turn to play.’ And the grand- 
son, if he be a wise child, will ‘goo’ so soon as 
he is able at his grannie, which ‘goo,’ once ac- 
quired, should adequately express grateful ac- 
quiescence and promise of much mutual joy in 
days to come. 

“It is well to have a mother. It is wise to have 
a grandmother. It is a sage child who loves his 
grandmother and takes for granted her love. 
Grannies like that. 

“You ask me if I miss Winthorpe? You ask 
it so kindly — who said paper neither hesitates 
nor blushes? — that I know you know I do. You 

9 


GRANNIE 


say you have memories of cool, vast rooms filled 
with flowers. I have the same. But the rooms 
to me are filled with the ghosts of other flowers. 
Against the rose damask curtain in the library 
I first discovered my Cynthia a beauty. You 
had discovered it long before, you say? Well, 
for all the world says of a mother’s prejudice, 
a young man, I think, is quicker to see beauty in 
a girl than is even her mother. She wouldn’t 
have made you happy, my dear boy. She has 
become a very smart young woman of the world, 
and not so young after all. But a mother is 
slow to see age in her children. Cynthia is a 
dear child, and has four children of her own as 
dear. You say it is all right now. Of course, 
ridiculous boy, it is all right. It must have been 
all right many another time since. 

“You say you could not write when Ralph died. 
I wish you had found the courage. He died as 
he would have chosen. No long, lingering illness 
was his. Death came mercifully and swiftly. He 
was ready in the accepted sense of the word — as 
accepted by our dear old nurse Benny. To say 
he was willing is another thing; even she would 
not have said that. He left those he loved, and 
for longer than I thought it could ever be. 

10 


GRANNIE 


“There was a time when I hoped death might 
leave the door ajar. But not now; I am content 
to wait. I should like to live to see my grand- 
daughter Patricia married. I wish you could see 
her. My boys are all married except Hugh, and, 
excepting Claudia, who lives with me, all my 
daughters. 

“When I passed for the last time as mistress 
through the gates of Winthorpe, yes it was bitter; 
but a strong arm upheld me. My boy felt it 
as much as I did. His little wife could not have 
behaved more charmingly. On that score I felt 
no jealousy, and in that I am most happy. 

“I won’t burden you with news of a family you 
must have forgotten, but when you come home 
remember this as your home for as long as you 
will, and Mary Legraye as an old and affectionate 
friend. 

“P. S . — By the way, Claudia has a photograph 
of you on her mantelpiece. I wonder if she found 
it among the treasures Cynthia left behind.” 

I addressed an envelope to His Excellency 
Colonel Sir James Rivers, K.C.B., etc., in some 
out-of-the-way, un-get-at-able place in Africa, 
and, with that hope and confidence that are ever 

11 


GRANNIE 


ascendant in the heart of woman, knew that, in 
due course of time, it would have reached its 
out-of-the-way destination if I had not prevented 
the possibility of anything so terrible happening 
by tearing it up. 

I wrote another letter to Jordan Rivers saying 
I would do what I could in the matter of votes 
for the candidate in which he was interested, and 
told him of things I thought might interest him, 
avoiding all mention of grandchildren, knowing 
them to be the least interesting of all things even 
to the most far-sighted bachelor. I then tore up 
the first letter, and, putting the second one into 
the envelope, was about to stick it down when 
Claudia came into the room. 

“Happy birthday, darling. Writing?” 

I said I had been writing. 

“Who to?” 

“Sir James Rivers.” 

“Why?” 

“Because he wrote to me asking for my votes 
for ” 

“You've promised them already remember, 
darling.” She laughed. “It doesn't matter. It's 
your birthday and you shall promise as many 
12 


GRANNIE 


votes to as many as you like, but, darling, I 
hope you haven’t poured out your soul to him?” 

“No, Claudia darling, I have not!” and I licked 
the envelope and gave it a vicious little thump 
with my fist, secretly rejoicing that Claudia knew 
nothing of the first letter, the fragments of which 
lay in the wastepaper-basket at my feet. 

“Mummy darling,” said Claudia, “why, if you 
have this overpowering desire to pour forth, don’t 
you write a book? It would be an excellent occu- 
pation for you. Describe how I tyrannise over 
you. Describe the Lullingtons and everybody 
else in the village, and, now that Hugh is going 
to fall in love with Diana Lullington, there is 
plenty for you to write about.” 

It was rather a good idea. Why shouldn’t I? 
And, if it only saved me from outpouring where 
I ought not to outpour, what an excellent thing 
it would be. After writing to Jordan I certainly 
felt very much better. Perhaps I had discovered 
the outlet I needed. 

Dear Claudia, I am afraid most young people 
suffer under the garrulousness and want of re- 
serve on the part of their elders. Claudia says 
it makes her hot all over when I tell a young man 
in a shop how many sons I have. Now why 

13 


GRANNIE 


should it? I have never yet found a young man 
who wasn’t interested, and who hadn’t the ready 
tact to express surprise as well as interest. 

Is there anything to be ashamed of in possess- 
ing four sons, three daughters and thirteen grand- 
children? 

“Do you remember Jordan Rivers?” asked 
Claudia. 

I said, “Not very distinctly.” But with a 
mental effort I recalled a tall, lanky, serious boy 
with a capacity for the worship of woman, and a 
shy reverence for her which prevented him from 
expressing the depth of the feelings which over- 
came him. Cynthia teased him. So he went to 
India and did great things. It is not the man 
who is best loved who does the most valuable 
work in life. But girls, in their desire to serve 
their country well, must not forget that there is 
much in love to be commended, that it makes 
of men excellent citizens. And after all, those 
men, who must build more than homes, have 
other incentives than unrequited love which drive 
them to the making of empires. 


14 


II 


If Patricia had not given me a pen, Bounce a 
blotter and Putts a pig, I should possibly never 
have written to Jordan Rivers, and probably my 
life would have continued its quiet course, gently 
ordered in all its paths by Claudia; which paths 
are herbaceously bordered, on the one side (in 
summer time) by delphiniums and larkspurs and 
sweet-williams, and penstemons and Canterbury 
bells, and lupins and hollyhocks; by lilies and by 
everything that should be found in the garden 
of a really happy old woman: on the other side 
bordered by lavender hedges, sweetbriar hedges, 
and by everything of most delicious scent that 
Londoners grow and smell in their dreams. 

Since Claudia has given me permission to write, 
I shall write of her. That I am an anxiety to her 
I know. She forgets that I managed many years 
without her, and that without me she possibly 
wouldn't have lived to manage any one; which 
would have been a pity, since she does it exceed- 
ingly well and without apparent effort. 

15 


GRANNIE 


She partly manages many things — schools, Sun- 
day and secular; clubs, men’s, boys’ and girls’; 
holds meetings, political and social; tells the 
young men in the village what things they should 
do, and still more definitely what things they 
should not do. In the folly of my old age I 
should have left that to their own good taste and 
judgment. Claudia calls spades spades and, inci- 
dentally, rakes rakes. She belongs to societies 
which busy themselves, not only with this genera- 
tion, but about the generations to come. In my 
young day the generation to come was a thing 
dreamed of by mothers who were slow to speak 
of these dreams except in prayer ; and since prayer 
is a thing that comes from the heart and not 
through the lips, none knew of these prayers. 
But they were good prayers for all that, and the 
answers to them the mothers learned to read in 
the touch of their children’s hands, in the purity 
of their children’s hearts, and in the laughter on 
their children’s lips. But I must own Claudia 
does not compare unfavourably with the young 
women of my day. There is something very 
splendid and forceful about her, and other quali- 
ties softer and gentler will come. And when all 
that force can do has been done, the muscles 
16 


GRANNIE 



of her arms may relax and into the softness of 
their curves may creep, I hope, little children. 
But they should be sons, for it is not given to 
all mothers of sons to be the right mothers to 
bring up sons. As fearless as the sons must 
she be who would make them brave, as gentle 
must they be as she is who would make them 
strong. 

How indignant Claudia would be if she could 
know of what I am writing. And no doubt she 
does, for nothing escapes her. 

Of my daughters, Cynthia is married happily 
and well. And my Bettine is married most 
happily, but not too well, as the world counts 
happiness, or pretends to think it counts happi- 
ness. 

Personally, I believe there is no woman so 
worldly as not to be touched, either with sym- 
pathy or envy, at the sight of married lovers. 

Ralph, my eldest son, is married and reigns in 
his father’s stead at Winthorpe. He has three 
children — two like unto himself and a third like 
unto their mother. I could wish them all like 
her. She, on her part, rejoices in that they re- 
semble Ralph. But she likes me to say I wish 
they were like her, so I say it and she slips her 

17 


GRANNIE 


hand into mine and says “You darling,” when 
it is most obviously she who is the darling. Her 
eyes encourage the world to say please, and are 
quick to respond with thank you. Her name is 
Isla and she comes from the west coast of Scot- 
land, and there is the freshness and softness of 
mists and moors in her eyes, and in her voice 
the sound of purling waters — especially when she 
laughs, which she does often and softly. Above 
everything else she has made me grandmother 
to Putts. It is an absurd name; but it is mine 
for him, and his for me is Grannie Patts — just 
as absurd. I don’t suppose any other foolish 
old woman would even answer to it, unless for 
reasons of politeness or because she was deaf. 
Certainly no sane woman would rejoice in it as 
I do. 

There can be few boys like Putts. He has 
what our old nurse Benny calls “a way with him.” 
He says, “If I was a little clock, Grannie Patts, 
no one should wind me but you!” It is no use 
whatever other old women saying they wouldn’t 
warm to a compliment so delicately expressed, 
because I simply shouldn’t believe them. Putts 
laughs just as his mother laughs and for even less 
reason, and he has her dimples, which, combined 
18 


GRANNIE 


with a powdering of freckles on his absurd nose, 
and eyes set sufficiently wide apart, make him a 
very attractive little man. I am supposed to spoil 
him, which supposition no doubt has some foun- 
dation; but the stories are added too quickly and 
are built upon fiction. I have a theory that love 
spoils no one. But it must be the real thing. 

Of girl grandchildren I have many — among 
them Patricia. If I have a favourite — but I 
have not! So soon as I think I love Patricia 
best, up pops a vision of Bounce. So round, so 
soft, so delicious a thing of four is she, that I 
could not say I loved any one better. If I did 
she would frown and frown and frown till she 
laughed, and when she laughs she laughs till she 
aches, and then she gasps “Oh, pelese top!” when 
it rests entirely with her whether I stop or not. 
She is the youngest daughter of my second son 
Dick. 

Dick has been married just long enough to be 
possessed of Patricia, and the silly old boy hasn't 
got accustomed to it yet, which in eighteen years 
he might have done. Besides being father to 
Patricia he has other business, which takes him 
to the city every morning. And every evening 
he comes back to Patricia, in the schoolroom for 

19 


GRANNIE 


choice, where in winter she toasts muffins for 
him while he tells her all he has been doing and 
saying and thinking during the day. And he 
imagines Patricia tells him all she has been doing 
and saying and thinking; but this old grand- 
mother knows she may tell him something of 
what she has been doing and saying, but very, 
very little of what she has been thinking, for the 
very excellent reason that she is eighteen, and at 
that age thoughts are dreams set to sacred music. 

Anna, Dick’s wife, has money, and when he 
married her I remember the mothers of other 
sons laying their hands on mine and saying in 
soft voices, punctuated with sighs, “How lucky 
he is!” as no doubt he was. Every man must 
hold himself so who wins the woman he loves. 
He who continues to love the woman he has won 
is still luckier. 

But I have a suspicion that when Dick looks 
his tenderest and kindest, it is Patricia who re- 
turns the look with the swift little smile that 
will win her more than her father’s love, and 
Dick knows that and is beginning to feel jealous 
of that smile, or rather of the man who shall 
bring it to Patricia’s eyes, for it is with her eyes 
she smiles best. 

20 


GRANNIE 


Hugh, my youngest son, is unmarried, and 
occasionally comes back to us for week-ends, at 
which times Benny becomes deliriously busy. 
With her I am content to share him. But at 
night it is she who tucks him up. That reward, 
for all the nights he kept her awake in years 
gone by, she has earned. 

Without Benny neither Claudia nor I would 
know when to change from winter to summer 
underclothes. One might suppose it to depend 
on our feelings; but it does not. It entirely de- 
pends on Benny's, and, in strict accordance with 
her ideas on the subject, so do I at all events 
change mine. 

Among the many things that bind me to Benny 
is the memory of the child we loved and lost. 
Together at his bedside years ago we watched, 
she and I. As anxiously as I watched she watched, 
as sleeplessly, as patiently, as hopefully, as prayer- 
fully, with the mother-light in her eyes, the break- 
ing ache in her heart. 

When the child left us, it was Benny's strength 
that upheld me. It was she who bade me look 
beyond the darkness of this world's night. It 
was she who, to awaken my dead heart, led me 

21 


GRANNIE 


to the bedside of my Bettine, then a baby. It 
is Benny now who reminds me of a hundred 
things I have forgotten — words he said, looks he 
gave, things he thought. 

Benny has in her keeping the key of the gates 
of a world of her own and of that child's. And 
I imagine that when she comes to the gates of 
heaven she will find her key fits. To heaven 
there are many gates, and one master-key fits 
them all. It is made to the pattern of love and 
the mould has never been broken, because Nan- 
nies are careful people. 

None of Benny's earthly keys fit anything. 
“But, ma'am," he says, “there's always the ward- 
robe to fall back upon"; which cryptic saying 
means that once, in a dilemma arising from lost 
keys, the wardrobe key did fit my box. Benny 
has ever since then, along with my clothes, put 
her faith in wardrobes. There is a little of her 
faith in every nook and cranny of our house — 
and her world. 

It is the Bennys of England who are her great- 
est and most enduring monuments. Is that, per- 
haps, why there is no corner in Westminster 
Abbey or St. Paul's for the nurses of England's 
22 


GRANNIE 


greatest men? many of whom owe much of their 
greatness, and their monuments entirely to the 
teaching of those women who guided and guarded 
them as children. Perhaps in the hearts of those 
men were raised monuments to those women, and 
a true Nannie would rather live in the hearts 
of those she loved than stand carved in marble 
before the eyes of thousands to whom she was 
never known. 

For Nannies are shy people. They seldom get 
beyond the other side of the drawing-room door, 
and very often no more than a kindly hand ap- 
pears, and the sound of a voice is heard encourag- 
ing the child to go to its own mother. Few 
Nannies would dare to say, “She won’t hurt you, 
darling,” but some would like to. 

When I told Claudia my little idea about the 
nurses of England having no monuments raised 
to them, she, being for the moment of a socialistic 
turn of mind, begged me to remember that most 
of England’s greatest men had had no nurses 
at all. 

“But, Claudia,” I said, “think of the children 
no older than themselves who took care of them.” 

“Ah! there, mother darling, you defeat your 

23 


GRANNIE 


own argument. It is the woman pure and simple, 
not the nurse !” 

So now I keep my little ideas to myself, for of 
course Claudia is right — a nurse after all is noth- 
ing but a woman, and every woman — at heart — 
a nurse. 


( 


24 


Ill 


I received another letter from Guy in answer to 
mine. 

“Thanks awfully for the pound I quite under- 
stand about the pistole besides it's gone. I’m 
going to buy a underhand gramaphone from a 
chap, he calls it that because it isn’t bran new. 
I told him he needn’t but he’d rather. I’ve taken 
a passing fancy to it, so I’m going to buy it. 
You can listen to it so that’s fair. You can 
play it backwards but it isn’t really so good I 
don’t advise you to only you may if you like. We 
don’t always want to do the things we may, worse 
luck. The gramaphone is kind of yours. — Your 
loving, Guy. 

“P. C . — The homesickling is better, he’s not a 
bad little beast. 

“P. P. C. — Mr. Barnes has gone all round the 
world to get fresh air.” 

I asked Claudia who Mr. Barnes was, so wise 
a man he seemed, and when Claudia said he was 

25 


GRANNIE 


the science master at Guy’s school, it struck me 
that Guy, at nine, might well be able to exist 
without a science master for a bit. Judging by 
the experiments boys make at home, a scientist 
must feel, even more than most men, the want, 
at times, of fresh air. 

“Guy hasn’t been asking for things, darling?” 
said Claudia severely. 

“On the contrary, my child, he is offering me 
the holiday rights of his underhand gramophone, 
any way I like, backwards or forwards, although 
he doesn’t recommend it backwards.” 

“It’s all very well mummy mine to try and 
put me off, but those grandchildren do impose 
upon you. You must be firm and learn to say 
‘No.’ ” 

I firmly believe my Claudia has made out a 
time-table by which she would have me live my 
days. I imagine it to be as follows — it amuses 
me to imagine it as follows: 

8 a.m. Rise. 

9. Breakfast lightly. 

9.30. Read letters. 

10.30. Answer letters, saying “No” to any re- 
quests made by daughters-in-law and 
grandchildren, on principle. 

26 


GRANNIE 


11.30- 11.40. Drink milk, eat biscuit, or, better 
still, eat biscuit, drink milk. 

11.45. Go into the garden, remembering that 
it is ten minutes to the gardener’s dinner- 
hour, therefore I must keep off, not only 
the grass, but everything pertaining to 
gardens, sick children and church matters. 

1- 1.30. Rest and read papers. 

1.30. Lunch lightly. 

2- 2.30. Rest and read papers again. 

3.30. Drive and pay calls, leaving rice pud- 
dings, not where I call, but where I visit — 
a nice distinction. 

5. Tea. 

5.30- 6.30. Garden, remembering the gardener 
knows the ages of all my children, their 
occupations, tastes, the number of my 
grandchildren, and that he leaves off work 
at six, and that his wife has rheumatism 
and needs him to grumble to. 

6.30- 7.30. Read something really worth read- 
ing. 

8. Dinner. 

9-10.30. Knit for the poor, 1 purl, 1 plain; 
play patience or read something light. 

10.30. Bed. 


27 


GRANNIE 


11.30. Lights out. “No dreaming, darling !” 

Does Claudia imagine it is only at night I 
dream? Do I keep her time-table? No. I read 
my letters at breakfast, I say “Yes” to nearly 
everything my grandchildren ask of me, I pop in 
and out of the garden, I bolt my biscuit or give 
it to the puppy, and I gulp down my milk. I 
play patience in the drawer of my writing-table 
and close the drawer when I hear Claudia com- 
ing. I read the newspaper at every odd moment 
I choose. I find the most frivolous novels really 
worth reading, just because I am able to imagine 
myself mother to the authors, which makes all 
the difference in the world. Let any one try 
who has the courage and the imagination. 

Now that I am old, it is the book of romance 
that most appeals to me. The hero I would 
choose is he who fights most duels and always 
wins; who loves passionately and wildly, and 
whose love for a brief moment is spurned, to be 
returned with fervour at the last. I love to read 
of couples eloping, of breathless rides in the dead 
of the night, of pursuers close at the heels of the 
fugitives. I glory in the darkness that saves them, 
in the light that blinds them. . . . 

“Mother, I'm ashamed of you,” says Claudia 
28 


GRANNIE 


when, at eleven o’clock at night, she finds me 
deep in a book of this kind, and taking away the 
book, she slips a marker between the pages and 
says, “To-morrow, darling” ; and I bear it because 
I have always looked at the end long before that, 
and Claudia goes to bed thinking me much better 
than I am, and what would most mothers do if 
most daughters didn’t think them that? 

I live in the country in what is called, and 
rightly called, a small way. To live in a small 
way, after living in a comparatively big way, you 
must do several things and live without many. 

To begin with — for three men-servants sub- 
stitute two women. The one of two women will 
clean boots less well than the one of three men. 
But she will put foliage with flowers, and for an 
old woman which is it better to live with, beauti- 
fully arranged flowers or well-blacked boots? 

Knowing men, I know which the masculine 
mind would prefer. 

I, on the contrary, choose the well-arranged 
flowers, because, whether the blacking be put on 
well by a man or indifferently by a woman, it is 
effectually licked off by the puppy, who busies 
himself about the matter while I write. 

Claudia gently reminds me that, as it happens, 

29 


GRANNIE 


the boots are blacked by the odd man. I am 
in no way discomfited. The odd man owns the 
puppy's mother, so the puppy has more than 
ordinary puppy-right to lick off the blacking if 
he chooses, because its blackness must remind 
him of his mother. She, on her part, if she 
remembers him, may plead for her son because 
she is never far from the boot-hole, and wouldn’t 
have to go out of her way to do it. 

I live in that part of the country that is held 
by my daughters-in-law to be salubrious beyond 
any other. 

Children without grandmothers go to West- 
gate-on-Sea, and for such there is no place better. 
I am sometimes assured that grandchildren are 
never really happy unless with their grannie. 
And if their wish to be with her should coincide 
with a desire on the part of their mothers to be 
in Paris, the grannie should be wise enough to 
show no surprise. She should be old enough to 
smile the smile that doesn’t show. After all, 
grannies like to be taken for granted. It pleases 
them vastly to find themselves not too old or too 
dull to win the confidence of their children’s chil- 
dren. They are keenly sensitive to the criticism 
of young people. They would like to see with 
30 


GRANNIE 


young eyes, but in some cases they cannot. Old 
sight is not young sight, and there are things 
I, for one, cannot see. I cannot see a baby on 
its mother's knee through the smoke of its 
mother's cigarette. It is foolish of me. Behind 
that cloud of smoke I ought to be able to see 
clearly just the same love that mothers of an- 
other generation felt for their children, for it 
must be there, since a mother is a mother and a 
baby a baby for all time. But the smoke brings 
tears to my eyes and dims them. Pretty young 
mothers, put out your cigarettes while your babies 
nestle in your arms, if only to please an old 
grandmother ! 

Another thing I cannot see is tenderness in 
ragging, or chivalry in romping. I know well 
enough that under the guise adopted by every 
succeeding generation to cloak that which is most 
sacred, must lie the tenderness that is the only 
true tie binding husband and wife; but in tearing 
the cloak to rags it is possible to tear also the 
garment of gentleness itself which clothes all true 
lovers. And it would be a grievous pity to do 
that, for it is a hard thing to mend that which 
is torn and, mend it never so neatly, the place 
will show, for the day must come when the man 

31 


GRANNIE 


or woman will hold it up to the light to see how 
it wears. 

Claudia thinks my book must be very dull, 
which no doubt it is. She says ragging is as old 
as the hills. “You absurd mummy, men and 
women will always flirt !” 

That is more than I can stand. “Flirt, Claudia, 
of course they will! I would do it myself,” as 
indeed most women do, whether they know it 
or not. It is instinctive — or should be. 


32 


IV 


The name of our house is Anne’s Folly, and I 
love the name almost as well as I love the house. 
I like to picture the merry Anne — (for merry she 
must have been) — building her house as gaily 
as a bird builds her nest. What a moss lining 
is to a bird a bow window must have been to 
Anne. In spite of a difficult and peppery hus- 
band, Anne got her way and her windows. 

To some prosaic minds a bow window in itself 
is a folly, for it cannot be said to be necessary to 
one’s happiness. But Anne perhaps knew that, 
from the side of a bow window, she would catch 
a glimpse of her son returning from school quite 
a second sooner than she would have done had 
she built dull, flat windows flush with the walls. 
And that was reason enough. 

Anne wore blue ribbons whenever she had the 
chance, that I know, and a pink rose in her hair 
on occasions. She had laughing blue eyes, and 
I can imagine the architect vastly enjoying the 
planning and building of Anne’s Folly. For he 

33 


GRANNIE 


must have been as joyous a young man as he was 
a happy builder, and the latter he was without 
doubt, because Anne's Folly is essentially a happy 
house — a house that laughs in every corner. And 
to this day birds hold high holiday in the eaves, 
and sing of the days when there was room at 
Anne's Folly for everything that loved and 
laughed and sang. Anne must have found the 
peppery husband a trial; but I dare say she 
managed him, and I like to imagine him soften- 
ing at moments and paying, without a word, the 
window tax. Particularly must he have softened 
when he stood with Anne, in a bow window, 
watching the going of their boy back to school. 
At that moment poor Anne must have been in 
sore need of comfort and distraction. 

Claudia doesn't believe it was a son Anne 
watched from the window. 

Properly speaking I should live in the dower- 
house of Winthorpe. Ralph, with his cheek 
against mine, held a brief for the glimpse of 
Winthorpe to be caught in winter, through the 
bare branches of the trees. It was just that 
glimpse I had not the courage to catch. “Please, 
my boy, let me go," I begged, and he let me 
go. 


34 


GRANNIE 


If Claudia regrets the dignity that should have 
clung to her, as squire’s sister, in the village, 
she does not say so. What she has lost in dignity 
she has gained in authority. Any one at Win- 
thorpe — of any age at all — might have resented 
being lectured by the young woman they re- 
membered as a long-legged, harum-scarum child. 

Here no one would suspect her legs of anything 
but length. Her footsteps lead her sedately down 
sober paths of virtue, and they have never strayed 
from the high road of earnest endeavour. 

We have our struggles — she and I — but I love 
her well enough to be deeply sorry, and not a 
little ashamed, when I come off victorious, and 
she, when victorious, feels just the same. She 
has reason oftener than I have to feel that par- 
ticular kind of sorrow, and she expresses it so 
nicely and so honestly that I love her all the more 
for that spirit of generosity, and for choice would 
have her win — sometimes. 

One lovely summer morning we had a struggle 
— a momentous one. On the breakfast-table I 
found a letter from Isla. To say it was a surprise 
would be untrue, because Benny had hinted at a 
glimpse caught of Mrs. Ralph’s handwriting, and 
I am ashamed to say my prayers, in consequence, 

35 


GRANNIE 


had been a little hurried. Not that it shamed 
me greatly or worried me at all, because the older 
I grow the more sympathy and kindness and 
tolerance I attribute to the workings of an All- 
governing Mind. The older I grow the less nar- 
row, bigoted and hard becomes that God, and 
that He has a sense of humour He has shown 
in diversities of ways, most particularly perhaps 
in making both men and baby donkeys. 

Well, I hurried and found the promised letter 
on the top of a pile of others. Our parlourmaid, 
so far as she is able to judge, arranges my letters 
in the order of their acceptability, bills at the 
bottom. This letter from Isla was to ask if I 
could have Putts for a few days; principally, it 
appeared, because Putts was pale. She begged 
me to say “No” if I would rather not have him. 
“In case you can’t, I have said nothing to him 
about it.” 

Putts pale, Putts pink, it was all the same; he 
must come whenever he wished and for as long 
as he liked. I left the rest of the letter unread 
and rang the bell with more vehemence than is 
my habit. When I said I had a telegram to 
send, our sympathetic Bowles put her best Putts 
foot forward and brought a form and a pencil. 
36 


GRANNIE 


At this moment came Claudia, fresh and 
fragrant, in to breakfast. “Haven’t I told you, 
darling,” she said, “to eat your breakfast before 
you read your letters. You are sending a tele- 
gram?” she added, closing her hand over mine. 

I admitted it, and said hurriedly that it was 
only to say Putts could come so soon as he liked 
and for as long as Isla wished. 

Claudia put on her most dignified manner — it 
can be immense, and I sometimes feel how wasted 
it is in this small village. 

“Winthorpe was perfectly healthy when we 
were children,” she said, skinning the crust from 
the loaf. She went on to say she imagined I 
would like her to be perfectly honest with me. 
Dear child, has she ever been anything but ruth- 
lessly honest with me? “Well?” I said. 

“Well, darling, the position is this. I have told 
a certain Mr. and Mrs. Brace that they may come 
and stay for a week or for as long as they like, in 
fact for as long as is necessary. They are coming 
to recuperate after a year of very strenuous work. 
Their minds and bodies are worn out. They are 
greatly interested in a society for the protection 
of ” 


37 


GRANNIE 


“Of mothers ?” I suggested, becoming, I know, 
bristly and odious. 

But why should people do more than they are 
fit to undertake and then make others uncom- 
fortable when they break down? 

Claudia admitted “of mothers’’ in a sense — 
the mothers of the people who in the future would 
count. “You see, I cannot disappoint them,” 
she said kindly. 

“Disappoint who?” I wondered; — those babies 
who were some day to count, or the Braces, who 
at that moment counted most uncomfortably in 
my life? The Braces were the expression of 
Claudia’s socialistic tendency which began to de- 
velop about that time, and which would have 
grown into something stronger if Mr. James P. 
Carter had not uprooted it once for all. 

Seeing that the Braces were inevitable, I sug- 
gested the big bedroom and the dressing-room. 
Claudia said they would require four rooms — 
two for themselves, one for the maid, and another 
for the secretary. There was still room for Putts; 
but it appeared Putts would worry them; they 
didn’t care for children. The end of it was I 
wrote a telegram saying Putts must come later, 
and Claudia wrote another. Both were handed 
38 


GRANNIE 


folded to Bowles. In silence Claudia and I fin- 
ished our breakfast. What is it that makes some 
silences so unbearable? 

Claudia felt this one so much that she got up 
and left the room, humming as she went — a hymn 
tune — of all signs most ominous! A second later 
she passed the window, her flower-basket on her 
arm, her scissors twirling on her finger. She 
had won, and I knew was feeling the pangs of 
remorse. 

A few minutes after Claudia had left the room, 
and while I was still wondering what excuse I 
could find to follow her into the garden, Bowles 
came in to ask if I would kindly read a word for 
her that she found difficult. It was Claudia's 
telegram she handed to me. The indistinct word 
I deciphered easily enough ; less easily I read the 
rest of the telegram, because my eyes were filled 
with tears at the generosity and kindliness of my 
child. She asked the Braces to come at another 
time. Dear, generous Claudia, it was my turn 
to show a like generosity. I asked Bowles to 
ask Benny for my garden hat. While Bowles 
went to ask Benny to do a thing she could per- 
fectly well have done herself — had she dared! — I 
tore up Claudia's message and wrote another ask- 

39 


GRANNIE 


ing the Braces to come by an afternoon train, 
on the day arranged by Claudia. 

Benny brought my hat. I put it on and I 
went out to the sweet-pea hedge. 

“Claudia?” I called. 

“Yes!” said a voice from the other side. 

“Darling!” 

“Silly old mummy mine!” 

“Am I a disagreeable, autocratic old lady?” 

A hand was thrust through the tangle of flow- 
ers. It was wet with the morning dew. I kissed 
it. So we made it up, and I never told Claudia 
her beloved Braces were coming. We avoided 
the subject; but when the day came I put roses 
in their separate rooms and prayed for strength 
to bear with them — the Braces I mean. 


40 


V 


It is unwise to have secrets from daughters for, 
on the day on which the Braces were to arrive, 
Claudia chose to go off at dawn on her bicycle. 
Perhaps the thought of how different the day 
might have been was more than she could bear. 
But I never imagined she would not be home to 
tea. I hoped and prayed she might be back in 
time, if only to prevent me from kissing Mrs. 
Brace. I felt sure she was a woman who would 
kiss readily and, in my desire to make up to 
Claudia, I feared I might be over quick to re- 
spond. To live near the Lullingtons — our nearest 
and dearest neighbours — means that kissing be- 
comes more or less of a habit — one quickly ac- 
quired and difficult to shake off. 

During the afternoon of that fateful day I found 
Benny wandering about in a state of suppressed 
excitement. Now, it being my business to fuss, 
not hers, I told her to go and sit down, and she 
went. 

Whether she sat down or not, I do not know; 

41 


GRANNIE 


but I did, and, as I looked out on to the view I 
love, I heard the sound of shuffling feet in the 
hall, ripples of stifled laughter, and above all, 
softly expostulating, Benny’s voice. 

The Braces, playful, was a horror urithought of. 
Could any friends of Claudia’s choosing be so 
frivolous as these sounded? Could such gurgles 
of laughter come from any one interested only in 
generations to come? 

The drawing-room door opened a few inches 
and in peeped my Putts. 

“Putts!” I exclaimed. 

“Well, Grannie Patts,” he said, throwing his 
arms round my neck, “I’ve come. Benny says 
it’s for a surprise for you. Is it one? A very, 
very, extra one?” 

“A very extra one, my Puttikins ” 

“I like them,” he said softly, leaning against 
my knee and searching for the treasures he loves, 
which hang on the long gold chain round my 
neck. I said it was the nicest surprise I had ever 
had. 

“Ever in all your life?” 

“Ever in all my life.” 

“Wasn’t when you married moreV 7 

“More of a surprise?” 

42 


GRANNIE 


“Urn,” said Putts. “Nannie said she was more 
surprised than anything in her life when Mrs. 
Moss married. She said ” 

“What did she say?” 

He hesitated; he was bent on opening a tor- 
toiseshell blob that hangs on my chain and does 
not open. Putts knows that it isn’t supposed to, 
but thinks it may some day if he perseveres. 
“I almost forget — anyhow she had some wedding 
cake. Only she didn’t see any one when she put 
it under her pillow — it didn’t act! Mrs. Moss 
is ever so old. If a horse was the same sort of 
oldness, he simply wouldn’t be able to eat or to 
stand, or do anything, he’d just drop. Well, 
she’s as old as that. You aren’t!” 

At that moment the Braces were announced. 
Their entry was effected without scuffling. It 
was an entrance dignified, complacent, patronising 
and kind. 

“Dear friend — no,” said Mrs. Brace, holding 
me at arm’s length, “have you never considered 
the danger that lurks ” 

She stopped at the sight of Putts and raised 
her eyebrows as if he were the first child she had 
ever seen. Her eyebrows seemed to question his 
right to be there. 


43 


GRANNIE 


“The view, Henry !" she said, to distract Henry 
no doubt from the sight of Putts. 

Henry fixed his pince-nez and admitted the 
beauty of the view; but made me feel that he 
would like to say if he had made it he would have 
done it better. 

“Doesn't it give you the feeling/' he asked 
from the window, “of something unattained?" 

As land I admitted it unattainable, because it 
belonged to the largest landowner in the county; 
but as a view it was mine. 

Mr. Brace murmured, “Those landowners, those 
landowners! Have they no consciences? Keep- 
ing the land from the people." He paced the 
room excitedly. 

“And what if the people took the land from 
the owners?" I ventured. 

There was a pause while he looked at me pity- 
ingly over his glasses, from me to his wife, who 
in her turn smiled — in sorrow and complete under- 
standing — at us both. 

To relieve the tension of the situation I told 
them the story of Putts out hunting, who, after 
galloping through heavy plough, went up to the 
farmer to whom the land belonged and said, “I'm 
44 


GRANNIE 


afraid I’ve taken away a good deal of your land 
on my pony ; hope you don’t mind ! ” 

My little story was received with chilly silence, 
and with all my heart I wished for Claudia. 

“And you are Claudia’s — the spacious Claudia’s 
— the glorious Claudia’s mother?” said Mr. Brace, 
surveying me critically with his head on one side, 
and his fingers in that position which holds out 
promise to children of “Here’s a church and here’s 
a steeple.” 

“Dear Claudia!” he murmured, “large-hearted, 
fettered, feminine creature. If we could only get 
her out of this!” He waved his arm, denoting as 
“this,” I supposed, the smallness of the drawing- 
room. 

I led him out into the garden. “Surely here,” 
I thought, “there is space enough for Claudia.” 

“Don’t you see,” said Mr. Brace, “how cramp- 
ing this is to the soul? How can she expand here?” 

I looked to my wooded hills and saw ample 
room for the expansion of souls. They could 
aspire to great heights and yet not reach the 
heavens. But I did not say so. 

“In a garden weeded by paid hands!” exclaimed 
Mr. Brace. 

Were ever hands more tender than old Speed- 

45 


GRANNIE 


well's, and they had been paid for years. Yet 
no money could ever repay the kindness I have 
received at those dear old hands. 

“Why should a man weed your garden, dear 
friend?” asked Mr. Brace; and I told him he was 
mistaken, the garden was Speedwell's, not mine, 
and any one with an old gardener would say the 
same and would be only too delighted to admit it. 

Nq Claudia came; but in her stead a telegram 
to say she was staying the night with neighbours ; 
but not near enough neighbours to reach by tele- 
gram at that hour. 

Through a long evening the Braces and I sat 
and talked. Their world was not my world, nor 
were their ways my ways. They held me up as 
an example of evil in that I found the world good. 
Why did I shut my eyes to sin? It was not until 
I saw it that I should fight against it. 

They have over me this advantage, that there 
must be in their world plenty of scope for that 
missionary spirit which inspires them to go about 
doing people good. I suppose it is because I 
live in a small village, close to my little world, 
that I find it so good. There does not pass a 
day that I do not hear of some kind, Christian 
act performed by some one poor and perhaps 
46 


GRANNIE 


suffering, to another also poor, also suffering. 
There does not pass a day that I do not vow to 
be better because of some example set by some 
one in my little world. 

I could have shown the Braces much that was 
good, if I could have taken them that night from 
cottage to cottage, and opened to them some of 
those doors. In one room, at least, I knew I 
should find a woman minding a sick child for 
another woman — sitting up during the night so 
that the mother might sleep, and in her sleep, 
forget, and in her awaking, hope. 

I found the Braces possessed of an insatiable 
curiosity. Their interest in their fellow creatures 
was largely, I think, due to a desire to know all 
about them. But what was perhaps born of a 
motive not altogether worthy, led, no doubt, to 
much that was good and noble. When they had 
discovered all there was to find out about a per- 
son, they set to combat the evil in that person’s 
nature and to nurture the good, and, according 
to their own showing, the souls they had saved 
were many. But in probing they must often 
have pained, and they did not spare me. 

Among other things, they advised me on the 
upbringing of Putts— and there lay the sting. 

47 


GRANNIE 


On looking back to the Braces’ visit I discover, 
if I honestly search my grandmotherly heart, that 
it was their attitude towards my Putts that made 
me dislike them. I could have forgiven Mr. 
Brace his hat, and possibly his tie, and perhaps 
his coming down to breakfast in slippers, if only 
he had understood, or had tried to understand, 
the ways of a child, and if he had only once had 
the gumption to say he thought Putts a fine little 
chap. Few people omit to do that, and, after all, 
it’s not much to do for an old woman, doddering 
though she may be. Most people can’t help doing 
it, even if in doing it they perjure their souls, 
which of course they don’t do — because it is 
true. 

In a moment of expansion I took the Braces up 
to see Putts asleep. As they gazed at a sight to 
me so beautiful as to be awe-inspiring, they fer- 
vently hoped he wasn’t suffering from adenoids. 

Benny blew out the candle. 

It was the only expression she gave to her feel- 
ings, and it was no doubt the safest. I under- 
stood it; but it left the Braces in the dark. 

As Benny brushed my hair that night she said, 
“We hope, ma’am, you will be brave to the end — 
we are very proud of you.” 

48 


GRANNIE 


When Claudia returned she was horrified to 
find the Braces had been left to me to entertain. 
Had I treated them as they were accustomed to 
be treated? I had no idea. That they had not 
treated me as I was accustomed to be treated, I 
knew. 

Claudia said it was very dear of me to have 
prepared such a surprise for her, and I quickly 
said how sweet it was of her to have sent for 
Putts. She asked how she could have done other- 
wise, when I looked just as Bramble looks when 
the kitten drinks his milk. “You have had your 
own saucer all your life, darling, and no one else 
has ever drunk out of it — and no one ever will.” 

This seemed to me a gross misrepresentation of 
fact; but I did not say so. 

On the third day of the Braces’ visit came the 
crisis. Mr. Brace said Putts had been rude to 
him. He said also that he was sure I would rather 
know. The responsibilities of a grandmother were 
great; they must not be shirked. Because a grand- 
mother suffers nothing in the getting of a grand- 
child she ignores all responsibility, treating the 
whole thing as a joke. 

I wished it might be possible for Mr. Brace to 
have a grandchild — and that quickly. 


49 


GRANNIE 

“Putts rude?” I said. “I am sure he is very 
sorry.” 

Now Putts was nothing of the kind. His face 
radiated joy and happiness, and something in life 
achieved worth doing. 

Claudia upheld Mr. Brace. As he went out 
of the drawing-room, leaving the punishment of 
Putts to my good taste and judgment, Claudia 
came in and declared it nothing to do with either. 
It was absolutely necessary Putts should be pun- 
ished. His mother deplored the fact that I spoilt 
him, and had said it made it difficult to allow 
him to come. 

Men, I believe, at moments see red. Old 
women, I suppose, may, with perfect propriety, 
see pink. That they do I know; whether it is 
proper or not that they should, I do not know; 
propriety is not my goal. That I looked pink 
I have no doubt, because Claudia said, “Darling 
mummy, you are too weak with children,” and 
she laid her hand caressingly on my shoulder. 

“Yet I brought you up,” I pleaded. 

She admitted it, but said she had been allowed 
to do things she ought never to have done. Putts 
therefore must go to bed, for the sins of his aunt, 
at five o’clock on a summer’s afternoon. Such 
50 


GRANNIE 


was the verdict, and the sun shone, mind you! 
And the birds twittered and the flowers played 
in the breeze — laughing as they danced to it; 
and on the lawn the shadows played; in the 
trees squirrels played; in the lanes school-children 
played; and Putts went to bed. 

It was left to his honour that, at the stroke of 
the hour, he should begin preparations. On the 
stroke, honourable gentleman that he is, he began 
them. Benny and I watched through the crack 
of the door. To be accurate I watched, the crack 
not admitting of more than one eye to it. To 
Benny behind me I reported progress. 

First of all Putts smoothed the counterpane 
very, very carefully. Then with his little fist 
he made depressions over its entire surface, at 
intervals more or less regular. Then in each 
depression he posted a cavalry soldier. This I 
duly reported to Benny. 

On his bed at the foot, against the bars, in full 
view, he stood the wooden horse (which Benny 
keeps for grandchildren). When I told Benny 
he had stood the horse there, she whispered, 
“Yes, ma’am, that’s for company,” and I said I 
knew it; but Benny had got it in first. It is 
possible a woman less generous would not have 

51 


GRANNIE 


believed that I knew for what the horse stood. 
A beautiful horse it was. It had once had blue 
stripes round about and beneath it. About the 
rest of its person had been disposed brass nails. 
Wherever a horse should have a brass nail a brass 
nail there had been. But now, to meet the re- 
quirements of the new generation, it had been 
painted by Benny a rich chestnut brown. Added 
to everything else, and of greater importance 
than anything else, in a horse as well as in a 
friend, it had the kindest expression possible — a 
real Christian face, Benny called it. And to her 
the horse owed it. 

In replacing a black boot-button eye, or a 
black paper eye, no matter which (for in the exact 
position of either lies the desired expression), 
Benny was past mistress in the art. She knew 
exactly how to attain the right amount of Chris- 
tianity. The eye put a little too much one way, 
the expression became sinister or evil; too much 
the other way, almost too seraphic and saintlike 
or idiotic even for this world’s playing. But an 
everyday, workable, healthy, normal and natural 
Christianity Benny could attain to a touch, and 
on this horse she had successfully bestowed it. 
It beamed tolerance and good-nature. 

52 


GRANNIE 


The horse settled to Putts* satisfaction, he took 
out of his mouth a bull’s-eye and balanced what 
remained of it on one of the brass knobs of his 
bedstead. I said “balanced” to Benny, but she 
reminded me in a whisper that it would stick 
of its own accord, which, considering its condi- 
tion, it did with ease. 

Then Putts, reviewing the results of his labours, 
put his two little hands together in a certain and 
equivocal position and made a diabolical face at 
somebody. It was not at the horse, nor at the 
bull’s-eye, nor at the bird that twittered on the 
window-sill. Then he proceeded to undress. 
With the exception of reaching one button, whose 
geographical position was a little remote, there 
was no difficulty attached to the proceeding. A 
wriggle or two and it was a thing accomplished. 
The clothes looked nothing as they lay in a small 
bundle on the floor. 

Then Putts proceeded to insert one leg between 
the sheets, very, very gingerly so as not to upset 
his army. A general has put his foot into it 
before now in dealing with his army, but it is 
doubtful if he can have withdrawn his foot as 
gingerly as Putts did his leg. He had forgotten 
something. Benny had two or three guesses. To 

53 


GRANNIE 


fold his clothes was one. She was right. He 
folded them according to his lights. I should 
not have liked him to fold them better. He 
would have been less of a boy if he had. Then 
the leg slowly began its second intrusion, then 
it came out again — this time to kneel with its 
fellow at the side of the bed. Putts prayed. The 
angels must have paused in their ministrations 
to listen. 

“Prayers, Benny,” I whispered, and Benny's 
apron went to her eyes. The more fervent the 
prayer, the more curled became Putts' toes. 

When he had finished — he didn't waste much 
of the angels' time — he got into bed, this time 
with success, and sat surveying his treasures. I 
turned to Benny. “You've got the draught in 
your eye, ma'am,” she whispered. “So have you, 
Benny,” I answered. 

I pushed open the door and went in. I was 
about to kiss Putts when he gently put me away. 
“You're not supposed to kiss me for more than 
half an hour, Grannie Patts,” he said, “for two 
hours I think it was after I whitewashed the pig— 
a real black pig it was! For two hours mother 
wouldn't; she never does when I'm naughty. I 
think it's two hours, p'raps more. Will you pull 
54 


GRANNIE 


down the blinds so I can’t see, it's so frightfully 
daylike; and don’t listen, Grannie Patts, while I 
say something.” 

I didn’t listen and I heard Putts say, “Beast, 
beast, beast, so there!” And I felt all the better 
for it, as Putts must have done. He emerged 
from under the bedclothes looking much happier. 
“Did you hear, Grannie Patts?” 

“What do you suppose, Putts?” 

“I s’pose Yes — as plain as anything!” 

A few nights later Claudia, sitting on my bed, 
said, “I’m so glad you understand the Braces at 
last, mummy — at first you didn’t a bit.” 

“Not a bit, darling,” I said, agreeing quickly — 
not with mine adversary, be it understood, but 
with my own dear, enthusiastic Claudia. 

“They are really most excellent people,” she 
said apologetically. 

“Most excellent,” I admitted without warmth. 

“The kind England wants,” she added, sur- 
veying critically the toes of her pink satin slippers. 

That there was something more to come I 
knew, but Claudia was too loyal to give immedi- 
ate expression of it. 


55 


VI 


The Braces had gone, and all was well with our 
world — Putts’ and mine. 

“Grannie Patts,” said he. 

“Putts,” said I. 

“You know” he said, wrinkling up his nose, as 
is his habit when he with another shares a secret. 

I knew. 

“Aren’t you jolly glad?” 

I nodded. 

“Does Aunt Claudia really and truly?” 

“Like them?” I suggested. 

He nodded. 

“Not really and truly, I think. She thought 
she did.” 

“I guessed that.” 

“How?” 

“By what she said.” 

“Who to?” I asked, regardless of grammar. 

“Only to herself. Grannie Patts?” 

“Yes.” 

“Miss Cherry is frightfully religious, I should 
think.” 

56 


GRANNIE 

“Why? I am sure she is; but why fright- 
fully?” 

“Be-cause — in church she says her prayers in- 
wards, like people do when they eat bulPs-eyes, 
because it's a jolly cold feeling, you know.” 

Miss Cherry lives in the village and she is very, 
very religious and very good. I asked Putts if he 
liked her, knowing quite well that grown-ups have 
no right to ask of a child such a question. 

Putts said he did rather. 

“Not very much?” 

“Oh, yes, rather, that means it.” 

We were weeding, Putts and I, and our con- 
versation was a little desultory. It was only when 
he brought an exceedingly fine weed back to my 
basket that I really knew what he was talking 
about. I told him so. 

“Well, when it’s something extra specially in- 
strintin M always come and tell you. ... I 
say, Grannie Patts,” and he knelt to examine a 
geranium bud, “look here — this flower is going 
to geranium.” And apparently it was. 

Then for some little time I heard the murmur 
of his voice. That he did not think I should find 
what he was saying extra specially instrintin was 
evident, because he didn't come for a long time. 

57 


GRANNIE 


Perhaps he had no weed worth the journey. At 
last he came. 

“It is funny that, about bein' made a potato — 
isn't it?" he said. 

“What made a potato?" I asked. 

“Me," said Putts ; “at least I could be if I was 
old enough, and you too — I spect you are already 
ages ago." 

“Do you mean half a potato?" I asked, think- 
ing of the definition of true lovers and wondering 
where Putts could have heard it. 

“No, a whole one I spec. It comes in the 
Collick — made a potato, you know!" 

“A partaker, Putts!" I said, seeing light. 

“Isn't it the same?" 

“No, darling." 

“Well, I thought it couldn't be the same sort 
of potato; but there are things that aren't the 
same that are called the same, aren't there — like, 
you know!" 

“Yes, certainly." 

“Grannie Patts, did God make you?" 

“Yes, darling." 

“And me too?" 

“Yes, darling." 

“Did He? Well, He did it all right, didn't 
58 


GRANNIE 

He?” He looked down at his little brown shoes, 
worn at the toes. 

“I think very well indeed; but why not?” I 
asked, puzzled. 

“Well,” said Putts thoughtfully, “I should have 
thought He would have been too old for the job — 
Speedwell says he is too old for his, and he can't 
be so old as God, not nearly.” 

“Wait till I come back, Putts,” I said. 

“Where are you going?” 

I did not say so; but I was going at once to 
find dear old Speedwell, to discuss with him next 
year's alterations in the garden. It is the only 
sure way I know of setting at rest his doubts and 
fears. When I say, “Next year, Speedwell, we 
will do this or that,” he tries not to smile. When 
I add, “And after a year or two, we'll do the 
other,” he gives up the attempt and, with a 
twinkle in his eye he says, “If you be spared to 
us, ma'am, we will.” 

When I came back to Putts he asked me if I 
thought dogs had souls? It was a delicate ques- 
tion and a ticklish one too, with Bramble sniffing 
at my boots. 

“Well, darling ” I hesitated. 

“I think Bramble has, because he knows the 

59 


GRANNIE 


smell of a prayer-book. He must have, mustn’t 
he?” 

I said it was very strong evidence. 

“What is?” 

“His knowing the smell of a prayer-book.” 

“What is knowing the smell of a prayer-book?” 

“Evidence.” 

“Is evidence a sort of a smell?” 

“Putts, we’re being very lazy.” 

“D’you think so?” he said, surveying the basket 
critically. There was certainly evidence in the 
basket of an extreme activity. I saw at least 
two plants that would not come under the head 
of weeds in any but a grandmother’s garden. 

“Grannie Patts, have you ever seen God?” 

“No, darling.” I did not like to puzzle him by 
saying I had — in many and very different guises. 

“Grannie Patts. . . . Why ever didn’t you 
turn round and have a jolly good look at Him 
when He made you?” 

“Why didn’t you, Putts?” I asked weakly. 

“Well . . . you see, darlin’,” he said, hard put 
to it, “I was thinking about what toys I was going 
to have for my birthday ; at least I expect I was — 
I always do before my birthday.” 

I felt that as a grandmother I had failed hor- 

60 


GRANNIE 


ribly in my duty; but as I see no irreverence 
in anything a child says in innocence, why should 
I pretend to? On the other hand there was 
that moral cowardice of which Claudia accuses 
me, behind which I was even now perhaps taking 
shelter, so I said bravely, “Putts, darling, I don’t 
think you ought to speak of God and Speedwell 
as you did just now — as if they were equal, I 
mean.” 

“Oughtn’t I to? Speedwell wouldn’t mind, 
would he?” 

He didn’t wait for an answer, but asked me if I 
had a hobby. “Daddy’s is shooting, I think, and 
mummy’s is smelling red roses, and Nannie’s is 
playing with babies — what’s yours?” 

I said I thought it was playing with Putts, and 
he asked me if that was a joke, and when I said 
I thought not, he said he didn’t suppose it could 
be. I asked him hurriedly what he was going to 
do in the afternoon and he said, “What do you 
think?” and I said, “Paddle,” and he said, “Good 
guess!” and I felt absurdly pleased. 

“D’you mind being alone, Putts?” I asked. 

“I’ve got you and I’m tired of babies. I know 
there will be more when I get home. There al- 
ways are. When I went to stay with — I forget 

61 


GRANNIE 


who it was, there was. Must people have more 
babies when their little boy goes away? Anyhow 
I shall be married and out of the way before they 
grow up. But must people always have them?” 

“No, not always. But I meant did you mind 
being alone when you were paddling?” 

“I don’t suppose I shall be. I saw a water rat 
last time. It plopped in. I saw lots of things — 
six little ducks. Then Benny comes.” 

I asked what Benny did. He said she dried him. 

“What else?” 

“She tells me stories. Will youT* 

“What, now?” 

“Please!” 

“What about?” 

“About those rocks in Scotland — you know!” 

“Do I?” 

“Yes, cliffs and rocks.” 

“That look like children’s slates, piled up?” 

“Yes, yes, tell it in a proper sort of way, not 
for children exactly.” 

“In long, long words you can’t understand?” 

“Yes, I like those and I do understand them.” 

Putts sat on my knee. “Begin! You needn’t 
say about the sea and the seagulls and the beauti- 
ful lights — and all that rot.” 

62 


GRANNIE 


“Putts! Rot!” 

“Sorry, Grannie Patts. I meant silly sort of 
things. I want only just about the slates, you 
know!” 

“Well, Putts, you must understand ” 

“I do; go on.” 

“You won’t let me.” 

“Yes, I will; I am letting you and you won’t. 
Go on!” 

“Well, Putts, you must understand.” Putts put 
a finger to his lips, raised his eyebrows and smiled. 

“You must understand that the cliffs and rocks 
on that coast of Scotland are of a very curious 
formation.” 

“I do,” said Putts, shifting his position, to my 
greater discomfort. 

“The cliffs look,” I went on, “as if the children 
of thousands and thousands of years ago, when 
their lessons were over, had laid their slates aside, 
neatly piling them one upon the other.” 

“Every day after lessons?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did they have new slates every day?” 

“Every day.” 

“Go on. Why didn’t they sponge them; never 
mind, go on!” 


63 


GRANNIE 


“Well, if it were possible for the mathema- 
ticians ” 

“Wise,” whispered Putts, wriggling. 

“For the wise mathematicians,” I said, cor- 
rected. 

“Are they always?” 

“For the wise mathematicians of the present 
day, or the wise school-inspectors of the present 
day, to look at the sums upon those slates, they 
might possibly be able to discover the age of 
those slaty cliffs.” 

“How could they?” said Putts, beaming. 

“Wait!” 

“Oh, I forgot! Go on.” 

“But let the wise mathematicians of the present 
day remember that the children of those long- 
ago days calculated ” 

“Cal-cu-la-ted?” 

“Yes, calculated, in cormorants.” 

“ Cormorants ?” 

“Yes, in cormorants, not figures. Added up in 
haddocks, and subtracted whiting from cod.” 

Putts drew a deep breath. “How did they?” 

“Well, you see, they can't get at the slates. I 
said, // the mathematicians could, they would 
know.” 


64 


GRANNIE 


“Not the top ones, couldn’t they? Are they 
too high?” 

“No; although they are very high, they might 
reach them; but if they did they couldn’t read 
the sums on the top slates, because the sea has 
washed them all away.” 

“And can’t the very strong men get at the 
underneath ones?” 

“Not the strongest man in the world, nor the 
wisest mathematicians in the world.” 

Putts wriggled. “I like that! Mustn’t they 
have been pretty sums, made of birds and fishes 
and not stupid figures? Could you catch the 
fish after you had done adding them up? Could 
you, Grannie Patts, just draw me what you think 
those sums looked like?” 

I said I would try, and Putts ran to fetch pencil 
and paper. 

I found it fairly easy to calculate in cormorants, 
so far as multiplication went. I did it in the old, 
old way. I began with two cormorants. Sub- 
tracting whiting from cod presented greater diffi- 
culties. But the cormorants multiplied so quickly 
that I used up all the paper and pleaded fatigue, 
not without excuse. 


65 


GRANNIE 


“Will you tell me it all again?” begged Putts. 
“How did they subtract whiting from cod?” 

“By taking them away.” 

“Wouldn't the cod mind ? Were they real 
slates? I wish they could be. Could they?” 

Putts sighed. If the wise mathematicians of 
the day could measure that sigh, it wouldn't give 
them the slightest idea of the height of Putts; 
but if they were very, very wise, they might, by 
its depth, arrive fairly easily at his probable age. 

As I finished the story Claudia joined us. 
“When I passed just now,” she said, “I heard you 
say something about inspectors. There was one 
here to-day, at the school. He said to the chil- 
dren, 'Can any child say the Lord's Prayer?' 

“Tommy Smallpiece put out his hand. 

“ 'Well,' said the inspector, 'you look more in- 
telligent than the rest, can you say it?' 

'"The Lord's Prayer,' said Tommy triumph- 
antly.” 

“Did the man laugh, Claudia?” I asked. 

“No, he wasn't quite so wise as that.” 

“Why wasn't he?” said Putts. 


66 


VII 


In order to live at peace with one's neighbours, 
in a village, one must be possessed among other 
things of a soul above the feeling of petty jeal- 
ousy, and, as few of us are so blessed, the problem 
may at times become a difficult one. 

In every community, however small, there are 
many who, if called upon to perform some su- 
preme act of self-sacrifice, would do it willingly 
and heroically; but ask the same hero to bear 
with equanimity the sight of a neighbour's garden 
gate painted a prettier green than his, and it 
would not be within his power to do it. 

The particular green of another's green gate 
is the very colour of jealousy itself. 

When the Lullingtons' gate was repainted, we 
made no effort to conceal our mortification, but 
straightway saw revealed, in all its bareness, the 
shabbiness of our own gate, and, while the Lul- 
lingtons' was still wet, we set about to have our 
own repainted. 

In every case Bentover — painter, plumber and 

67 


GRANNIE 


bellringer to the village — was most particularly 
told not to copy the Lullingtons’ green, and in 
every case he did not copy the green; which was 
so unlike his usual intelligence in carrying out 
our orders that it was voted inexplicable as well 
as inexcusable. He might, at least, have done it 
by mistake and explained it away afterwards, or 
have left the gate-owners to do it. We were 
prepared, no doubt. Then transpired the truth, 
which proved stranger than fiction. The colour 
of the Lullingtons , gate had been arrived at purely 
by accident — the accident being the upsetting of 
the contents of one paint-pot into another. At 
the critical moment Don’t Lullington came along 
and, finding Bentover distraught, told him not 
to worry, and to make him happier she gave the 
mixture a stir, and the immediate result was the 
most beautiful green imaginable. 

Bentover, under pressure, tried to do it again, 
upsetting first one pot into the other, then the 
other into the one; but to no good purpose. 

Don’t even went so far as to give it a stir; but 
even that magnanimous act on her part had no 
effect. The Lullingtons’ gate remained like its 
owners— different to anything else in our little 
world. 


68 


GRANNIE 


The swearing of the greens in the village so 
upset Bentover, not only as painter but as bell- 
ringer, that on the Sunday morning following the 
paint accident, he rang the last church bell — 
which should be the “turn turn” bell — second, and 
those of us with weak hearts arrived more than 
usually breathless in church and much too early. 
But, as Don’t said afterwards, we had plenty of 
time to recover by the “Venite,” which, of course, 
we had. 

One Sunday when Putts was with me I was 
not well enough to go to church, so I asked him 
to pray for me. “Pray for you, Grannie Patts?” 
he said, “well, what with kneeling down and 
getting up again and all the other things there are 
to do in church, there isn’t much time to pray” 

I have often wondered what children do when 
they seem to pray so earnestly. I remember 
Putts saying his prayers one day at great length, 
and every now and then he murmured, “Vat’s a 
very nice one — yes, 111 have vat one, fank you.” 
I asked him what he was doing, and he said he 
was choosing carpets. Let any grown-up who 
likes to try, press his eyeballs and see what lovely 
colours come. No Persian rugs could have colours 
more beautiful and varied. 


69 


GRANNIE 


When Putts was very small he was taken to 
church, as a great treat, and when the clergyman 
said, “Let us pray,” Putts said, “Oh, do let’s!” 

How he must have longed to play, poor mite. 

People who live in large houses never, I imag- 
ine, go out to spend the evening with their 
goloshes. This is not quite rightly expressed, but 
it is what Claudia accuses me of doing. It was a 
form of gaiety new to me when I came to live in 
a village, and I find it very pleasant. 

The Lullingtons, for whom I principally don 
goloshes by night, I love. Another of the delights 
of living in a small house is that the inmates of 
other small houses invite one to walk in un- 
announced. No one so walked in to Winthorpe; 
neither did I when living at Winthorpe walk into 
other people’s houses unannounced. 

I cannot say I liked it “all at once,” as children 
say. It took time to grow accustomed to the 
privilege. Now it is one of my many privileges 
in life to lift the latch of the Lullingtons’ door 
and walk in. 

The first time I did it was soon after I knew 
them. They had earnestly begged me to do it, 
saying it was a test of true friendship. So I did 
it. I walked into the drawing-room which I 
70 


GRANNIE 


supposed to be empty, until upon my ears broke 
the sound of a stifled voice. It came from the 
back drawing-room. It was a young voice 
strangled by emotion and it said, “Nobody loves 
me — I am spurned upon — I am the refuse of the 
family!” 

Now this was a sufficiently surprising thing to 
hear in the drawing-room of a house in a quiet 
country village, where I had been led to believe 
that we all loved one another and did unto 
others, sometimes, as we would expect others to 
do unto us, and I felt an immense desire to rush 
in and comfort that spurned-upon child. It must 
be so awful to be the refuse of a family and to 
know it! But there was surer comfort nearer at 
hand. Another voice nearly as strangled said, 
“God loves you; I love you!” and then in chorus 
both voices, no longer strangled, broke into “Boo- 
hoo, boo-hoo!” 

I slipped out. It was no place for me. But 
the first speaker I knew to be Don't Lullington 
and the second Do; the patient, long-suffering 
Do, who remembered to feed the rabbits when 
every one else forgot, and who from early dawn 
to late at night ran messages for the whole family. 

In those days Don’t was eight and longing to 

71 


GRANNIE 


be misunderstood. She is now seventeen and 
has given up all idea of it. She is so downright, 
so honest, so uncompromising that it is difficult 
not to understand her. She leaves little margin 
for misconception. She is a dear, impulsive, im- 
petuous, generous-hearted creature, and her gaiety 
is one of the things that lure me to the Lul- 
lingtons. Another lure as strong is Mrs. Lul- 
lington. 

Now that Do is growing up he wishes the name 
Do dropped. He is even more sanguine than 
most of the Lullingtons if he thinks that possible. 
A nickname clings closer than another, and I 
imagine till the end of his days it will be Do and 
Don’t. 

It was the day after Putts had gone and Diana 
Lullington had come home “for good” (as the 
children say), that I lifted the latch of the Lul- 
lington’s door and walked in. 

“And Putts has gone,” said Mrs. Lullington, 
after we had compared gardening notes, and were 
sitting down ready to enjoy what Don’t calls a 
prose. 

I said Putts had gone. 

“He’s a dear little man,” said Mrs. Lullington, 
picking up a stitch. She was knitting; she is al- 
72 


GRANNIE 


ways knitting. “Isn’t he? I mean, prejudice 
apart, he really is.” 

I laughed. However, it seemed hardly worth 
while with Mrs. Lullington to be reserved, and 
to affect an indifference I didn’t feel, and that 
she knew I didn’t feel ; so quite simply I told her 
all about Putts. She might never have heard 
it before, she was so interested and occasionally 
so surprised. “And you start on your visits very 
soon?” she asked. 

I said, very soon. 

“First to your Bettine?” 

“First to my Bettine.” 

“Then to Mr. Dick?” 

“Yes, then to Dick.” 

Dick led by a direct route to Patricia. Mrs. 
Lullington knows well the line of country. I 
told her a good deal about Patricia, and she said 
anything I told her she could well believe, adding, 
“I met her last time she came down to see you, 
and I told my Don’t how I wished she had man- 
ners as charming.” 

This gave me the opportunity to talk of Mrs. 
Lullington’s children, and I said so many nice 
things of Don’t that I hardly left time to say how 
pretty Diana was looking, and I had come for the 

73 


GRANNIE 


express purpose of saying it. If you want to say 
something nice about a woman's children, say it 
before she does. It will carry far more weight 
than mere acquiescence, however fervent. 

Mrs. Lullington said it was so nice of me to 
say so. It was no use denying it — Diana was 
very pretty. I asked her why she should think 
of denying it? And she assured me only because 
it was an absurd affectation expected of mothers. 
At the beginning of every new year she made a 
solemn vow not to tell any one that her children 
were charming, or pretty, or clever, or anything 
that would prejudice them in the eyes of other 
mothers. 

Respecting her reticence, I asked her how long 
she was able to keep her vow, and she said, 
“Sometimes until I meet you." 

“And that you do every day?” 

“I am glad to say I do.” 

It will be seen that Mrs. Lullington and I are 
a great comfort one to the other. 

“Now tell me about Claudia,” she said. “I 
noticed her new hat on Sunday.” 

I said I believed it was the old one turned 
inside out. 

74 


GRANNIE 

“Ah ! Don’t said it was. How pleased she will 
be!” 

And I thought how pleased Claudia would be. 
Claudia has never got quite accustomed to the 
intimacy of village life, and vows the past of a 
hat concerns its owner alone. 

These conversations, though dull to others, in- 
terest us and are quite harmless. 

Soon after Diana Lullington came home, Hugh 
apparently began to lose a popularity which I 
had sometimes felt to be too firmly established 
to suit a mother’s week-end point of view. 
Whether it was that the doors of those country 
houses, which had for some years been open to 
him, were now closed, or whether his eyes, older 
and wiser, had awakened to the beauties of a 
quiet country village that he had hitherto found 
tame, I cannot tell. From defending the girl of 
the present day with a very creditable warmth, he 
began to find her too emancipated, too easy-going, 
too noisy, too many other things. He began to 
talk of simplicity in women, a thing he had never 
before, so far as I knew, looked for, or assuredly 
he might have found it. He began to talk of 
marrying to please me. He went farther than 
that. He vowed our golf course was quite good, 

75 


GRANNIE 


even sporting; the service in church just what 
he liked. He said he thought it only decent 
that a man should set an example in the village 
by going to church. Didn’t Claudia think so? 
After that question, Claudia grew younger and 
more frivolous than I had seen her for years. 
Joy danced in her eyes and she winked at me. It 
was not until one Sunday in church that I under- 
stood the wink and couldn’t then \yink back. 

I had just intercepted a look sent from the 
eyes of Hugh to the heart of Diana Lullington. 
Diana could not have seen the look with her 
eyes because they were fixed intently on the east 
window, and yet I knew that she knew that a 
message had winged its way from a pew in the 
nave to another in the chancel. And the message 
in passing had brushed, with the tip of its wing, 
a mother’s heart, and the mother knew that her 
last son was to be taken away. And the manner 
of his going would be as the going of his brothers 
before him. She knew the formula by heart, as 
must every mother know it who has married sons. 
It is only when the son meets the woman he 
means to marry that the mother learns that the 
child who knelt to pray at her knee never until 
now knew even the meaning of prayer; that until 
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GRANNIE 


now religion had been to him a thing unreal, in- 
tangible, meaningless! The mother knows that 
at the end of it all the son will “remember,” and 
will put his arms round her neck and will say 
he hopes the girl he loves will be as good a wife 
as she has been a mother. And the mother knows 
it is just those arms around her that become lift- 
ing wings to carry her to those heights from which, 
with her son, she may look away to the promised 
land. And she must look with him and see with 
his eyes, or she will never journey with him in 
that land; and journey with him she must, for 
there may be times when the road becomes rough 
for young feet to tread and the way dark. Then 
it may be that the mother, who has already trod- 
den the road, may be permitted to carry the 
lantern, and, if she is allowed to do that, she 
will not ask more of her son’s wife — if she be a 
wise mother. And if she is not wise by the time 
her son marries, she will never be wise. There 
remains for her the refuge of kindness, which may 
be misunderstood; but that need not be her fault. 

All this came to pass in due time, but not quite 
in the way I had expected, and not until after 
Mr. James P. Carter had been, and I had paid 
my visits to my married children. 


77 


VIII 


Mr. James P. Carter gave us due warning of his 
coming. His coming could not have been a greater 
surprise than his letter was. Our dear old post- 
man had brought bombs to our door before; but 
none that exploded with quite such effect. I 
should have thought Claudia, with her initiating 
friendship for the Braces, would have looked at 
it differently. But it is strange how theories 
melt away under the searching light of every- 
day life. Claudia received the letter at break- 
fast. That the reading of it disturbed her I 
could see. That it concerned neither her clubs, 
nor her garden, nor her politics, nor her boys, 
nor her men, I guessed from the frown of per- 
plexity on her face as she read it. There were no 
circumstances under which she could not manage 
men in general. This letter was from one man 
in particular. As a man he might have been more 
particular, it seemed, or less. My outstretched 
hand was ready and aching before Claudia placed 
within it the letter that she had read and re-read. 
I now read it. 

78 


GRANNIE 


“Miss Legraye, — It has taken me years to 
summon up courage to do what I am about to 
do. My impulse, under ordinary circumstances, 
would be to ask if you remember me. I can only 
ask you to forget me. That’s easy enough, you 
say! Well, that is the attitude of mind in which 
I hope to find you. But I am going to ask a 
great deal of you. If you have forgotten the 
boy I was, I want you to think of the man whose 
ideal you have been all these years back. What 
that man has done, he has done because of you. 
What he has become, he has become because of 
you. If years ago any one had told me I should, 
one day, do what I am now going to do, I should 
have killed him right away for his presumption. 
I was James Carter then, I am James P. Carter 
now. If I had been certain you had forgotten 
James Carter, I should have written you years 
ago, asking if I might call and see you. I ask it 
now. I would be as ready to lick your boots now 
as I was ready in days gone by to clean them. 
They were the smallest of the whole family’s, 
in proportion to your size. You must remember 
that you gave me plaster for my finger when I 
cut it, and, to make sure, you bound it up with a 
bit of your doll’s dress? I shall be in London by 

79 


GRANNIE 


the time this reaches you. A line to James P. 
Carter, the Ritz Hotel, will find me.” 

I handed the letter back to Claudia. “It has 
been to Winthorpe, of course,” I said, and Claudia 
asked me if the man was mad? Was it a pro- 
posal? How dared he! 

“One moment,” I said. I opened the Morning 
Post , at which a moment before I had glanced, 
and put my finger on the reported arrival, at the 
Ritz, of Mr. James P. Carter. When an English- 
man arrives at an hotel it is unusual to give the 
exact amount of his income. I should imagine, 
as a rule, he made some effort to conceal it; but 
Mr. James P. Carter’s income and entire fortune 
was given, and how he had made it, and how he 
best liked to spend it. 

“I remember him,” said Claudia hotly, “a little 
boy with sticking-out ears.” 

“Which gave him a look of alert intelligence,” 
I suggested. 

“Mother! you with your conservative ideas I 
should have thought would have been furious.” 

“You with your radical ones I should have 
thought might have been at least touched.” 

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GRANNIE 


“The Carters at the Red Farm!” fumed 
Claudia. 

“They have been at the Red Farm as long as 
the Legrayes have been at Winthorpe.” 

“My children cousins of their children’s 
children!” 

I laughed. “Their grandchildren in fact. What 
will the Braces say?” 

“The Braces! What do they know about the 
traditions of a family? He never — never used 
his dressing-room!” 

It was out! I had known there was some- 
thing to come. 

“What shall I say to James, mother?” 

He was “James,” just as he had been as a little 
boy. He could never be anything else. 

“I should thank him for his letter. It’s a nice 
letter.” 

“Mother,” said Claudia, “I believe you would 
be quite happy if I married James!” 

“My darling, I shall only be happy when you 
marry the man you love. I cannot give you up 
to any other. But we must be sincere. If we 
accept hospitality from people, we must be pre- 
pared to let our daughters marry them.” 

“But,” expostulated Claudia, “I haven’t the 

81 


GRANNIE 

slightest idea of accepting hospitality from 
James.” 

I reminded her there were many Jameses in 
the world of society. 

“But,” said Claudia, “they haven’t been the 
boot-boys of the particular people they entertain.” 

It was a difficulty certainly; but I liked 
Claudia’s little socialisms brought home to her 
door. In this case they seemed to be laid at her 
very feet, and most appropriately by a boot-boy. 
Who better? 

For a day or two Claudia was irritable. She 
snapped at her old mother, and the old mother 
understood and didn’t mind. At the end of two 
or three days Claudia became herself again, and 
she and I sat in the garden talking of many things, 
among others of James, and Claudia confessed to 
finding something profoundly moving in the man’s 
proposal — if proposal it were. 

I had found it so from the first; but Claudia 
held it her discovery, and rated me kindly for the 
want of width, breadth, and charity even, in my 
character. 

Having told me all I had for some time felt 
and known, she left me, saying she would be back 
to tea, which we must have in the garden. Left 
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GRANNIE 


alone, I may have gone to sleep. I certainly 
seemed to awake to see Benny in the distance 
emerge from the kitchen garden, talking as she 
walked to a tall man in whose bearing there was 
great dignity. That he was no relation of Benny’s 
nor a friend of the servants I could see; but that 
Benny was lecturing him was evident, and he was 
listening with bent head, his attitude admirable! 
He revered dear Benny. I saw him consult his 
watch. He was about to go. Curiosity compelled 
me to keep him. I beckoned to Benny, who with 
hurried steps came across the lawn. “Who is 
that?” I asked. 

“James he was once, ma’am,” said Benny, 
flushing. 

“Now Mr. James P. Carter?” I asked. “Say 
I should like to see him.” 

Benny went and spoke to him, and James P. 
Carter, baring his head, made his way towards 
me over the lawn. 

What would Claudia have said? There were 
tears in my eyes. 

“Mr. Carter?” I said, holding out my hand. 

“James Carter, ma’am,” he said, taking it. 

I asked him to sit down. He sat down. 

My first thought on seeing him cross the lawn 

83 


GRANNIE 


was, how dared he propose to marry my daugh- 
ter? My second thoughts, how perfectly natural 
it was that he should ask for anything he wanted 
and how right that he should get it, in any case 
but in that of Claudia, of course. 

“You know I wrote Miss Legraye?” he asked. 

“My daughter and I have no secrets,” I an- 
swered gently. 

“Then you know she told me not to come — 
well, I just had to! It was great presumption on 
my part.” 

“You would not think it so in the country 
from which you come? Would you?” 

“Without the lady's permission, yes, I think 
so. It would take courage. But I just had to.” 

He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, 
and, clasping his hands, said in a low voice, pleas- 
antly modulated, “Where I come from a man is 
taken for what he is. The race is to the strong 
man. There's no dishonesty in poverty, there's 
no disgrace in riches.” He stopped and, looking 
round him, said, “I was at Winthorpe the other 
day. It was wonderful to be there again; I found 
my old father and mother, at the Red Farm, 
sitting in the garden under the apple-tree, just as 
they used to sit. They gave me a wonderful wel- 
84 


GRANNIE 


come. They gave me what no money can buy. 
The whole village did that. I was not James P. 
Carter, I was Jimmy. I had forgotten it all. If 
I had not done so I would not have ventured to 
write Miss Legraye as I wrote. I had forgotten 
the England I had left, although I was not aware 
of it. If you had asked me, I should have said 
there was nothing I did not remember; but I 
had forgotten the ‘keep off the grass’ kind of 
feeling. And I didn’t feel it until I passed through 
the gates of Winthorpe. It was then James P. 
Carter crumpled up and became Jimmy Carter, 
with a clean collar on and a face well washed. 
It came back to me then what Winthorpe had 
meant to that Jimmy. It brought back the feel- 
ing of the Sunday afternoon in summer time. 
There’s no feeling quite like it. It’s so quiet, so 
peaceful — so curiously English. The gardeners at 
Winthorpe were strange to me. They showed me 
around. It is all just as it was. Nothing changes 
much with things already centuries old. There 
was a cute little boy ” 

“Putts,” I said. 

“Yes, that was the name. He was very much 
what Master Hugh used to be. We made friends. 
He turned out his pockets for me.” The man’s 

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GRANNIE 

voice grew soft and his eyes smiled as he spoke 
of the child. 

“And England seems small to you?” I sug- 
gested. 

“Yes, it’s small. It’s like a wonderful jewel, 
it wouldn't look so precious if there was more 
of it.” 

“And where do you live?” I asked. 

Mr. James P. Carter said very modestly where 
he lived. He lived, it seemed, in many places. 
He had a palace, I supposed, in New York; a 
villa at Newport; a farm in the mountains; an 
estate out West. He did not say so, but I guessed 
it. 

I was so interested in the man that I was strung 
up to the point of high tension, when across the 
lawn came Claudia, cool, calm and composed; 
much more so than her old mother. Mr. Carter 
rose to meet her. 

“Well, James!” she said. She held out her 
hand. Reverently he took it, and at her com- 
mand he sat down. He might have been one of 
her choir-boys, as easily one of her Christian 
young men. In silence he looked at her, drinking 
in with his eyes, it seemed, the beauty of which 
in his heart he had dreamed. Yet old Speedwell, 
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GRANNIE 


who knows her best, says she’s “no beauty, but so 
powerful sensible.” 

“And your father and mother still live at the 
Red Farm?” said Claudia, her voice suggesting 
criticism and slight censure. 

“They live there,” said James gently. (A less 
gentle man would have resented the question so 
spoken.) “To have taken them from their soil, 
even some years ago, would have been trans- 
planting them too late. We Carters must be 
uprooted fairly young to survive it, for our roots 
go deep. I left them in their home at their 
particular desire; but what anxiety was within 
my power to remove from their lives I have re- 
moved. The life they live is the life they love. 
They are no longer dependent on harvests. They 
have some one to wrestle with Providence, so to 
speak, when necessary. My mother ” 

“I know they are very comfortable,” said 
Claudia flushing. “Of course your mother, being 
accustomed to work, would feel lonely without it.” 

“That’s just it — lonely without it — that’s ex- 
actly the position. And my father! The man 
who has handled a spade all his life can’t 
straighten his hand in his old age. But I must tell 
you about the house in which my mother is happy, 

87 


GRANNIE 


and can still work — if she chooses. The chimneys, 
for one thing, no longer smoke. The old people 
have as much wood as they can burn, and that is 
a luxury to the man who has been careful of his 
logs — my father is still that. He keeps one in 
hiding, under his chair, out of my mother’s reach ; 
for he says she takes to waste easier than he does. 
I say women adapt themselves more easily to 
circumstances. The windows are still mullioned 
windows; but they let in no draught. The four- 
post beds remain ; but the mattresses are as good 
as can be bought. The linen is not so fine that 
my mother can’t see to mend a hole, should one 
come. The furniture is old English as it always 
was, and beautiful as it always was; each piece 
a mirror. The oak stairs would have no carpets 
were I ten times as rich as I am. Nor would 
the cows’ milk be richer, nor the cream thicker. 
I have perhaps been a tyrant in some things. 
Being an American — I call myself one now and 
am proud to do so — I have pleaded that the old 
home should remain English and purely of the 
right date. It is the model of an old English 
home. It is what an old farmhouse might still 
be, if England were what she were; but as Eng- 
land changes, so must her homes change.” 

88 


GRANNIE 


Then James Carter asked Claudia if she re- 
membered scolding him for singing “Nearer 
Rome” in church. She said she didn't. 

“But you must surely,” he insisted gently. “I 
have never forgotten it, and for the chance of 
proving it, I have been a regular church-goer 
ever since.” 

But nothing would soften Claudia. To the 
end of the visit James Carter was James. Her 
socialistic mind couldn’t forget that he had 
blacked her boots. If he had blacked some one 
else’s in a neighbouring county how proud she 
would have been of Mr. James P. Carter! How 
resentful if that county had failed to do him 
honour. 

The village fly bore Mr. Carter away from our 
gate. Rumour has it that at the bottom of the 
lane he stepped from the fly into the most mag- 
nificent Rolls Royce limousine that had ever been 
seen our way. The glory of its fittings were sung 
by Rumour to Benny, who in her turn sang them 
to Claudia, adding for herself this — 

“I dare say he cleaned my boots. He was a 
wonderfully willing boy.” 

A few days later I heard from Isla. She wrote 
full of the praises of a very rich American who 

89 


GRANNIE 


had been to see Winthorpe. She said : “With the 
intelligence common to Americans, he showed the 
profoundest interest in everything. Nothing es- 
caped him. Even the place where the boots are 
cleaned he carefully examined. Of course it is 
a dear old place with a vaulted roof, and once 
sheltered fugitive Royalists ; but not one English- 
man in a hundred ever stops to look at the place, 
whereas the American could hardly tear himself 
away.” 

“You must tell Isla,” said Claudia, “if you must 
tell her about James at all, that he wasn’t an 
ordinary boot-boy. He came to Winthorpe with 
the express object of making a little money in 
order to pursue his studies at night-schools or 
something — you must remember that, mother. 
He’s quite a gentleman.” 

“It was not in Mr. James P. Carter, my child,” 
I said, “that I found a lack of gentleness.” 


90 


IX 


Claudia went to London. She chose the most 
worldly, the richest, and the most fashionable of 
her friends to stay with. For the moment she 
had done with the James Carters and the Braces 
of this world. 

But the things we have done with have a way 
of cropping up again in our very footsteps. A few 
days after Claudia left, she wrote. It was not a 
long letter. It was written at night; she was 
alone. She was glad to be alone. She was writ- 
ing in her friends drawing-room overlooking the 
Green Park. It was a beautiful summer night. 
The lights of London were moons and stars hang- 
ing in a blue veil of mist. She felt sorry for Helen 
having to go to a party on such a night. Then 
came the confession. — “Mother, darling, I am not 
staying at home because I am tired, or because 
my frock won't do, or because it is hot, or because 
I am lazy. I am staying at home because the 
party is given by James, and it is to outshine any 
party of its kind ever given. The whole of the 
best part of London society is flocking to it. The 

91 


GRANNIE 


carriages and cars come right past the door, and 
away as far as one can see they stretch. I hear 
nothing but good of James P. Carter. I vowed, 
snob that I am, not to tell any one what he used 
to be, and I find it is the only boast he makes. 
The only one! Mother, why did I persist in call- 
ing him James? It was odious of me! I am 
going yachting with the Martins to-morrow. Anna 
begs and implores me to introduce James to Pa- 
tricia. I absolutely refuse. So does Patricia; she 
insists on going to you. Anna is writing about 
it.” Anna wrote saying: 

“Dear Grannie, — Patricia against my wishes 
goes to you to-morrow. She and her maid will 
arrive at 3.30. Don’t let Benny distract Peters 
from work that must be done. Benny must re- 
member that hers is a privileged position. She is 
not what any one else would call a maid at all. 
It is such an expense dressing Patricia, I cannot 
get her underclothes made out, and she will have 
them so ridiculously fine. Dick encourages her. 
I cannot imagine why. I have an innate distrust 
of very beautiful underclothes, I don’t know why, 
and if I did I suppose I couldn’t tell Patricia. 
She has a habit of opening her eyes wider and 
92 


GRANNIE 


wider at me, which infuriates me. If she would 
do it to young men it would be another thing. 
But with the exception of the one, she won’t take 
any notice of them. She is ridiculously stand- 
offish ! Dear Grannie, I am very unhappy about 
young Forres. Why in the world should men do 
uncomfortable things they needn’t really do, and 
then pose as heroes? Nobody asks them to go 
into unexplored places! I am dreadfully afraid 
he has made an impression. He has that ridicu- 
lously worshipping way of looking at girls. He 
looks at Patricia as if she were a religion — as if 
he were praying to her, and I don’t suppose he 
ever goes to church, and if he does, it is probably 
to a Presbyterian one. There’s an enormously 
rich and fairly youngish man in London now, a 
Mr. James Carter, one of the Carters of Carters- 
ville. I want so much to meet him. I wish you 
hadn’t dropped all your friends, London friends I 
mean. You see in a case like this what a pity it 
is! Patricia cut Baron von Felzenheim’s dance 
last night, and he hardly ever asks a girl to dance! 
Do do what you can and persuade her to marry. 
I shan’t be the dear old lady to live with that 
you are, and Patricia is meant to marry. It is 
all very well for Claudia, she’s a manager. Pa- 

93 


GRANNIE 


tricia isn’t in the least. She just smiles and her 
dimples get her what she wants. But when those 
dimples are wrinkles, what then? I used to have 
dimples. 

“Primula’s teeth are prominent. (I wish I 
hadn’t called her that.) It would cost a hundred 
guineas to alter the shape of her face. What do 
you advise? Lady Pinhay says, ‘Leave them 
alone. They give such a kind expression, and 
nothing appeals more to men than kindness.’ 

“As Primula has a bad temper, would that 
counterbalance it? Does Lady Pinhay know she 
has, and how does she know it? Dick says she 
meant nothing. It was only her way of telling me 
not to fuss. Our doctor says bad temper means 
bad health, that’s all, and that Primula will grow 
out of it. 

“Did your children go through phases? Hav- 
ing children isn’t what it used to be. Freddy told 
me yesterday that I got on his nerves. Every 
child nowadays is born a critic. — Your affection- 
ate, Anna.” 

“P.S . — You know how particular I am about 
spots on the cloth? Well, at luncheon yesterday 
I made a spot helping raspberry tart, and I pulled 
the dish nearer and hoped the children hadn’t 
94 


GRANNIE 


seen it. After luncheon I told Freddy to say 
grace. He shut his eyes and, folding his hands, 
said, Thank God for my good dinner, and thank 
God I didn’t make that spot!’ Do you think that 
funny?” 

I did. 

A note enclosed from Patricia began “ Angel” 
and ended just as it should end to please a grand- 
mother. The middle, too, contained just the in- 
formation the same old woman wanted to hear. 

Patricia confides in her grannie, wise, wise child 
that she is, and she really believes, or pretends 
to believe, that her grannie believes what she pre- 
tends to believe. But grannies see more than 
children think, and this one knows that Patricia 
promises six men one dance, and dances the six 
dances with one man. Of this her mother has no 
idea; but her father has, and he has poured out 
his troubled soul to his old mother. “You will 
influence her, mother?” he says, and the mother 
of the man and the grannie of the girl squeezes 
the man’s hand and keeps faith with the girl. 

“Of course, mother, if you are prepared to make 
an impossible marriage possible!” 

Why do the best of married children imagine 

95 


GRANNIE 


that an old woman has no possible use for her 
money — can't, in fact, spend it? 

I smile. I know whether it is made possible 
or not Patricia will go on loving her hero — for he 
is that. And I for one cannot blame her. It is 
the way she is made. Loyalty beams in her truth- 
ful eyes and honesty lurks in her smile. I wrote 
to her mother. 

“My dearest Anna, — I shall count the hours 
until I see my Patricia. Benny almost as eagerly 
awaits Peters. She promises not to distract her. 
In fact, she is saving up work to do in order to be 
as busy as Peters. Benny assured me the other 
day she is not one to talk. As I always hear, 
when I open the passage door, a ceaseless stream 
of voice coming from her sitting-room, I asked 
her what she did talk about when she happened 
to talk, and she said, Mostly about which child 
had given her which vase. That’s safe enough — 
isn’t it? 

“Primula’s teeth, I should say, must be seen to. 
Why not leave her a little kind (with the shape 
of her face as God made it), and put her teeth 
back? This might, perhaps, be done for less than 
the sum you mention. But if you would like my 
birthday present to you to take the form of part 
96 


GRANNIE 


of the extra sum needed, say so, and I shall be 
delighted to give it. But my little Primula must 
remain a little kind-looking, to me at all events. 
I am sorry times are bad — [that, I knew, would 
go home]. The wise doctor speaks very truly 
when he says bad temper is bad health ; he knows, 
no doubt, how much more difficult it is to pre- 
scribe for than to diagnose. No healthy person 
should be cross unless he is called unhealthy; 
then he has every right to be as cross as he can 
be. In this modern cry of mind over matter I 
think people forget that, in trying not to think 
about their bodies, they think about them over 
much. Isn’t it rather a new version of the old 
piebald horse and his tail? Forgive me, Anna, 
for the tiresome old woman that I am, and send 
me Patricia safe and sound.” 

Patricia came. She is assuredly the slimmest 
thing on God’s good earth, and the youngest and 
the freshest, as she is the least self-conscious. A 
difficulty confronts me and has confronted me for 
many years, and that is, how to explain the charm 
of Anna’s children when she is by no means what 
any one could call an ideal mother? Does Patricia 
owe everything to her nurses and governesses? 

97 


GRANNIE 


Or has Anna’s selfishness made her child unselfish? 
Do unselfish mothers make selfish children? I 
begin to think so. An unselfish wife is to blame 
in that she makes a husband selfish, who with 
another wife would have had scope for the better- 
ing of his character. It is very puzzling. 

Patricia has the engaging manners of a delight- 
ful child with the good sense of the kind-hearted, 
wise woman she is one day to be. She looks her 
best in whatever she wears; but best of all in 
what she calls her “glad rags,” which her dense 
grannie learns is only another name for country 
clothes. “What else would you call them, gran- 
nie?” she asked, and asked in that way I had no 
answer ready other than “Glad rags, of course, 
what else?” and Patricia skipped with joy and 
would have had me skip too, forgetting my age. 
She inveigled me into my “glad rags,” which 
meant the unpacking of a box packed for the 
next jumble sale, and the breaking of Benny’s 
heart in the unpacking. And as I put on my glad 
rags I felt something of the glory of youth re- 
turning— just for a fleeting second. 

“And what shall we do, grannie?” said the 
wearer of the glad rags, and I discovered there 
was nothing I could do but walk round the gar- 
98 


GRANNIE 


den, and that the child agreed to do; and, slip- 
ping her arm through mine, we walked down the 
garden, up the garden and round the garden, and 
we talked of things nearest to the hearts of us 
both. In reality we only thought; but each knew 
in her heart what the other was thinking, and we 
had no need to put into words that which with- 
out words we understood. 

“How do you remember so well, grannie?” 

“Because — perhaps because I have never for- 
gotten, darling.” 

“You are the youngest person I know in the 
whole world — much, much younger than Claudia,” 
whispered Patricia, for which heresy I gently 
reprimanded her. “Much, much younger,” she 
repeated unabashed. 

“But not nearly so wise,” I suggested. 

“She won’t be the ‘dorable’ grannie you are.” 

“A grannie is what a grandchild makes her,” I 
explained. 

I proposed that Patricia should play golf, but 
she shook her head and said, “Oh, the weary walk 
after the ball, and the better you play the farther 
you have to walk.” 

Dear child, it was an apt description of a game 
as it appears to me ; but in no way did it describe 

99 


GRANNIE 


the game as it appears to her, for I know she loves 
it, and I told her so. And she said she loved me 
better. 

“That grannie takes for granted.” 

“Grannie for granted,” murmured Patricia. 

It is not with every one I would choose to spend 
the longest day in the year — but with Patricia I 
would, and Patricia, I imagined, had some reason 
for choosing the company of her grandmother 
that bright long summer’s day, a day for glad 
rags, a day for youth, a day for a game of golf with 
a man in love with one (the ideal and only way of 
playing any game, especially croquet). But I 
knew the man Patricia loved was far away, and 
the men in love with her would be too many and 
spoil the game. 

The man she loved was so far away that she 
could speak of him to an old woman who might 
never live to see him. It was almost as good 
and certainly as safe as whispering things to one’s 
own heart. Under the trees Patricia and I sat 
and looked up through the tracery of leaves to 
the blue sky above. Over the grass at our feet 
was thrown the lace of light and shade, which to 
me is one of the prettiest of summer’s garments, 
and the coolest. 

100 


GRANNIE 


The lawn slopes gently till it reaches the sunk 
fence, and then those daisies and grasses, that are 
tired of being mown and cut, slip over the edge 
and so escape old Speedwell’s scythe. The daisies 
are safe, if quickly smothered, but the grasses, I 
imagine, grow high and strong and thick. They 
riot with the ragged robin, no doubt, and when 
grown tall enough, climb, I suppose, up the other 
side of the sunk fence and, in whispering garden 
secrets to the waving grasses in the meadow, are 
caught and cut by the haymakers. Across the 
meadow, which Benny and Speedwell prefer to 
call the Park, runs a road which is very consider- 
ately used by the villagers as a public footpath. 
The Lullingtons too must use it if they would 
reach the village quickly, and as they must al- 
ways do that, much life passes up and down the 
road; and from the drawing-room window, or the 
lawn, I can watch it. 

I like on Sunday afternoons to see the young 
couples walking along it, and from Don’t I learn 
which young man is walking with which young 
woman, and from her description I have come to 
know them by their gait. She has also initiated 
me into the mysteries of “yarding, arming and 
waisting,” so that I can note their progress and, 

101 


GRANNIE 


when it comes to “waisting,” pray for them and 
for the prosperity of their house. 

There is a dear little girl whose hat in hay- 
time I can see bobbing above the long grass as 
she walks along the road, and, when she judges 
herself to be opposite my sofa, she drops a dainty 
curtsy and is lost for the moment in the daisies 
and buttercups. But up she comes again and 
walks on her modest little way, full of goodness 
and sound principle. I envy the woman whose 
housemaid she will some day be. 

On this summer’s afternoon, as I sat in the 
garden with Patricia, they were cutting the hay 
in the meadow. Across the fence and over the 
lawn came the sound of the haymakers’ voices, 
the sharpening of scythes and the scent of new- 
mown hay. “It is good to be alive, grannie,” said 
Patricia, slipping down on to the grass at my 
feet and laying her head against my knee. 

“It is good to be alive in a world of promise.” 

“Promise of what?” she asked. “The things 
we want or the things we don’t want? It makes 
such a difference.” 

“To me, perhaps, darling, of the promise of a 
world to come where I shall meet again those I 
love.” 


102 


GRANNIE 

“Does that really comfort you? This life seems 
so wonderful.” 

“The hope of another life is as strong in my 
heart as is the certainty in your mind of the com- 
ing of another spring, and it is that hope that ” 

“And for me,” whispered Patricia, “it is not 
enough — there must be many springs.” 

“You are too young; your world is this world. 
The one you are to love best — you do love best — 
is of this world and young.” 

Patricia nodded. 

“How did it happen?” I asked. 

“How do such things ever happen? Have you 
forgotten? Did Grannie-Man see you for the 
first time and not fall in love with you?” 

I took the child's hand in mine. “It seems to 
me Grannie-Man must always have loved me. 
But tell me about your man, my baby Patsy!” 

“I’m not a baby! That’s just it, I am old, old, 
old. I see other girls of my age, children, without 
a care. I must appear a child because mother 
wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t expect me to 
have any thoughts beyond frocks and frills. If I 
look serious she takes tickets for the Gaiety, which 
is the saddest place in the world if you don’t feel 
like it. I hate to be made to laugh when I don’t 

103 


GRANNIE 


want to, and of course I laugh — laugh till I ache — 
and then mummy looks as much as to say, There, 
I told you so! Wasn't I right?' and I go home 
and cry myself to sleep. She imagines there is 
something, I know, and she thinks if I see lots of 
men it will be all right. Did she ever really love 
father? I asked her once and she said she had 
the children. I can't imagine that could make 
up to any woman for the other thing. Children 
can't make up, can they, grannie? Having me, 
feeling as I do towards her, can't be to mummy 
what it would be if daddy loved her as I imagine a 
man might love. Why, what I feel for mother 
couldn’t make up for anything." 

“You mustn't say that, darling," I said. 

“To you I may say anything, grannie. I 
couldn't make up!" 

“No, darling, you couldn't make up. Nothing 
in the world can make up. But children are won- 
derful things, and without them, you must re- 
member, grandchildren are an impossibility." 

“Grannie, I was going to ask you something— 
but I won't." 

“Can't you?" 

Patricia shook her head and I asked no more. 
I sometimes think old people would gain more of 

104 


GRANNIE 


young people’s confidence if they did not de- 
mand more than the young want to give or can 
give. There is a very real reserve in the young 
mind which must be respected. 

“Isn’t it the best thing in the world, grannie?” 

“Quite the best, darling.” 

“Then why mayn’t I have it if God gives it 
to me?” 

“Who would take it away?” I asked. 

“Mother,” she said gently; “she doesn’t under- 
stand, poor darling.” 

“And the time seems long?” 

Patricia didn’t answer. 

“Will it be long to him too?” 

A gentle pressure of the child’s arm on my knee 
for answer. 

“My darling.” 

What would Anna say, I wondered? It is diffi- 
cult to be loyal both to mother and daughter. 

“It’s a funny thing, isn’t it,” said Patricia, “that 
there is only one man in the world. There must 
be others as charming, as delightful as this one, 
as good-looking or perhaps as ugly; but they 
won’t do. Can you explain it?” 

I said I imagined no one could. There must 
be girls — for the sake of argument — as charming 

105 


GRANNIE 


as Patricia Legraye, and yet the young man didn’t 
think so. Wasn’t that so? 

Patricia nodded. “So he says.” 

I asked her to tell me about the first meeting. 
She said there was nothing to tell. They met. 
“I walked into the room; he was standing talking 
to Mrs. Joyce. Mrs. Joyce said my name and his, 
and it was done.” 

“And you knew it, wonderful child-girl just out 
of the schoolroom?” 

“I knew it,” said Patricia simply, “when he 
talked of the lonely places of the world. I felt 
jealous of his loneliness, and I’m not jealous as 
a rule. I resented his loving to be alone when 
he should have wanted me — there, grannie, I’ve 
told you what I wouldn’t tell any one in the 
world! If I told mummy she would say, ‘Patri- 
cia, how fearfully unladylike when you didn’t even 
know the man!’ ” 

Patricia said she would love to read me some 
little bits out of his letters. She drew out of 
the front of her blouse, in some mysterious man- 
ner, a crumpled letter. “Doesn’t he write beau- 
tifully?” she asked, holding it up for me to see. 

I said he made the Greek “E ” Patricia 
106 


GRANNIE 


laughed. “Clever Grannie Patts, as Putts says. 
I don’t know what kind of an ‘E’ he makes.” 

She opened the letter and read the little bits 
in a low voice. I could only guess at the pink- 
ness of her cheeks, for her head was turned away. 
This writing of boys and girls to each other 
puzzles me, old woman that I am, and behind the 
times. When I was a girl the man who loved a 
girl wrote her a love-letter pure and simple. 

In the letter Patricia now read to me there was 
no mention of love. It might have been written 
by a friend to a friend ; on the other hand it might 
as easily have been written by a husband to his 
wife, old married people and good comrades. It 
argued a great intimacy, a certainty that every- 
thing about the one would interest enormously 
the other; but I felt the deeper feeling was ex- 
pressed by the tenderness of the intonation of 
Patricia’s voice. It was her voice that read love 
into the words. But, of course, it was honourable 
of him to write as he wrote when they were not 
engaged. I had not given him credit for a reti- 
cence which was right and proper under the cir- 
cumstances. But I had looked for human nature, 
not reticence. 

When Patricia stopped reading, I said they were 

107 


GRANNIE 


delightful bits, and very interesting to lovers of 
natural history and geography. 

“Then,” she said, “he says something silly at 
the end; he loves teazing.” 

I asked to hear the silly bit — thinking that 
when a man is most silly he is sometimes most 
serious. 

“It's only this,” she said, running her finger 
down the page; “he says, T wonder if we shall 
ever find again either of us such a friend as you 
have been to me and I hope as I have been to 
you. I believe we should be strong enough — if 
the test came — to give each other up. Should 
we? When you find a man better than I am, 

and worthier ’ Isn't he silly?” said Patricia, 

“as if I could!” 

Silly? Silly? My heart beat to breaking point. 
At that moment I could have met in single com- 
bat and defeated, too, the treacherous scoundrel. 
Was this the way of breaking off a friendship that 
had become irksome? That Patricia was sub- 
limely unconscious of any such intention was 
absolutely certain. She turned her radiant face 
towards me, and in her eyes I saw that mysteri- 
ous happiness that comes from one cause alone. 

108 


GRANNIE 


“Shall we go to the Lullingtons to-night?” she 
asked. 

So to the Lullingtons we went. All that going 
to the Lullingtons entails is a note to say we are 
coming. 

Why is it that people with small houses always 
have room ; people with a few servants can always 
have as many extra to a meal as they like? For 
the same reason can people with one fat pony 
drive farther afield than can people with two 
fat horses and one fat coachman. 


109 


X 


Patricia and I walked to the Lullingtons ; it was 
not an occasion on which to sport goloshes, for 
the road was as dry and as clean as only a road — 
a sandy road — can be in summer. 

Along the road on this summer’s evening came 
old Sainfoin walking, carrying a basket on his 
back. He is a familiar figure in the village. By 
trade a baker, he comes from a neighbouring ham- 
let, bringing his wares to sell. It is not taking 
the bread from the mouths, or the ovens rather, 
of the bakers in our village, because they bake 
but three times a week, and on those days on 
which Sainfoin does not. So Sainfoin has for 
many years supplied a want, somewhat indiffer- 
ently, but I believe to the best of his ability. He 
used, at one time, to bring the bread in a pony 
cart. Then he brought it more slowly, but as 
surely, in a donkey cart. One day I met him 
walking beside his donkey and, stopping him, 
asked how business was doing. 

“Business? well enough, ma’am, well enough. 
Simon’s getting no younger.” 

110 


GRANNIE 


Simon was the donkey. I put my hand on his 
dear rough head. I love donkeys and I told Sain- 
foin so. He smiled. “We’ve never had a word, 
ma’am, Simon and me,” and he patted Simon’s 
head, and at the same time my hand. “Have we, 
Simon, old man?” he said. I withdrew my hand 
gently, and Simon, as was his habit, said nothing. 

On this summer’s evening Patricia and I 
stopped old Sainfoin. “How is business?” I 
asked. 

“Pretty middlin’, ma’am,” he answered, and 
would have passed on. 

“And Simon?” I asked. 

There was a pause. Old Sainfoin shifted the 
basket on his back. 

“Have you had words?” I asked. 

“Just about that, ma’am, parting words; they 
were hard to speak.” 

Patricia pressed my arm spasmodically and 
Sainfoin would have passed on. “Wait, Sainfoin,” 
I said; “how is business?” I insisted on knowing. 

“About done, ma’am,” replied the old man. 
“I’m about done too.” 

“No, my good man, you’re nothing of the kind. 
Come and see me to-morrow morning and tell 
me all about it; we will see what can be done. 

Ill 


GRANNIE 


You have more friends than you know and better 
friends than you imagine. Good evening.” 

“Good evening and God bless you, ma’am — 
and the young gentleman.” 

“That comes, Patricia,” I said, “of being so 
slim and of wearing so little clothing.” 

“But I don’t look like a boy, do I?” she asked. 

I looked at her and said I could just tell the 
difference. 

“Will you get his donkey back?” she asked. 

I said I would try. 

“Will the people give it up?” 

“The donkey, Patricia? No, they will not give 
him up, but for a consideration they may allow 
me to give him to Sainfoin.” 

We found the Lullingtons deep in an argument 
with little Miss Cherry, who is supposed to live 
in the village, but who lives mostly with the Lul- 
lingtons. Mrs. Lullington having discovered, in 
days gone by, that Miss Cherry had about as 
much money as would keep a hen robin from star- 
vation, had, on the plea of being lonely, persuaded 
Miss Cherry to spend most of her days at the 
Warren, which name not inappropriately de- 
scribes the Lullingtons’ house, although it is bet- 
ter known by that of Bunny Lodge. Miss Cherry 
112 


GRANNIE 


must be easily taken in if she can imagine Mrs. 
Lullington lonely. 

As we walked into the drawing-room, Miss 
Cherry had just announced the fact that a friend 
of hers and theirs had not passed an examination. 

“Did he go up?” asked Mrs. Lullington, with- 
out malicious intent I am sure. 

“That, dear,” said Miss Cherry, looking pained, 
“I cannot say. It is not the point. I said he 
had not passed.” 

“But,” said Don’t Lullington, “if he didn’t go 
up how could he pass?” 

“Whether he went up or not, Louisa Lulling- 
ton,” said Miss Cherry, “is neither here nor there. 
It is another question altogether. All I wish to 
state is what I did not see with my own eyes, and 
that was his name among the passees.” 

“Parsees? They’re black. What’s he got to do 
with black people?” 

“Don’t, dear, don’t,” said Mrs. Lullington. 
“Here is Mrs. Legraye — and Patricia,” 

Don’t sprang up, glancing defiantly at Miss 
Cherry, who trembled beneath her gaze. The 
dear little Cherubim, as the Lullingtons call her, 
was suffering under an agony of apprehension 
lest she had used a word wrongly. Pronunciation 

113 


GRANNIE 


was a pitfall which for the true gentlewoman 
she knew should not exist, yet it was one that 
yawned, a veritable chasm, at her feet whenever 
she was at Bunny Lodge, because the Lullingtons 
made her so nervous. 

All this I felt was passing through her mind, 
because the troubled spirit was reflected in her 
poor little face. To distract the attention of 
every one I told of our meeting with old 
Sainfoin. 

“Sainfoin?” said Miss Cherry. “Lady Bruxton 
was speaking of him only yesterday. She said he 
was very disrespectful, he didn’t touch his hat to 
her the other day. She said it was a sign of the 
times!” 

“It’s a sign he’s blind, nearly blind, dear old 
thing,” said Don’t, her eyes full of the tears of 
righteous indignation. The tears brimmed over 
and ran down her flushed cheeks. I loved her for 
those tears. 

“Not blind, Don’t, is he?” I said; “I have never 
discovered that.” Then I remembered the touch 
of his hand on mine. 

“He wouldn’t want you to know, because no 
one would eat his bread if they knew.” 

114 


GRANNIE 


“Would you, Don’t?” asked her mother a little 
anxiously. 

“Of course I would! I’d eat boiled eagle if it 
did any one any good.” 

“Rough on the eagle,” said a voice from the 
floor. (There are always a few Lullington boys 
on the floor playing with puppies. I think it is 
one of the things that makes the Cherubim ner- 
vous.) 

“Dear Mrs. Legraye,” she sometimes says, “you 
never know at Bunny Lodge when a voice won’t 
come from the back drawing-room. It is very up- 
setting.” 

“But Don’t, darling,” said her mother, “I can’t 
have you eating unwholesome things for the sake 
of any one.” ’ 

Don’t said we had all been eating Sainfoin’s 
bread and were alive to tell the tale; which, of 
course, was true. 

I asked Don’t how she knew about old Sainfoin. 
She said she couldn’t tell, because if she did we 
would never eat his bread again. 

I suggested there might be better ways of help- 
ing him than eating his bread. 

“Fire away,” said Do. 

“Well,” said Don’t, “if you’ll 'promise it shan’t 

115 


GRANNIE 


make any difference I’ll tell you. He went to 
fetch some skim milk the other day, and he took 
a paint-pot to bring it home in, and there was 
paint at the bottom of the can — or pot or what- 
ever it was. That’s all!” 

I wondered if it was the precious colour we had 
all been striving after. “Was it green, Don’t?” 
I asked. 

“Yes, but not the one — much yellower.” 

I, for one, should not be surprised if the people 
in Sainfoin’s village and ours did not eat of his 
bread. We told Don’t so very kindly. But she 
was not to be appeased. 

It is the same impetuous spirit of kindliness and 
tender-heartedness that sends her through the 
woods shutting the traps; to the cottages to warn 
of visits impending, those women who, through 
their untidiness, are under the ban of expulsion 
at the hands of the Squire; the same spirit that 
sends her to sit with the drunkard till the craving 
for drink shall have passed; that presides over 
the classes, held under the beech-tree, for those 
backward children who can’t do their lessons in 
school; who can only read with an arm round 
their waist. Don’t’s arm is ready, and the little 
readers, under its encouraging pressure, conquer 
116 


GRANNIE 


quite long words. It is the same spirit that sends 
Don’t to the poachers to warn them of night- 
watchers; to the night-watchers to warn them of 
poachers; the same spirit that keeps her awake 
through a dull sermon. And the same spirit it is 
that makes Don’t Lullington Don’t Lullington. 

"My sister is properly 'out/ ” said Don’t to 
Patricia; "she’ll be down in a minute. She’s not 
looking her best to-day, because she scratched her 
nose on a rosebush last night when we were play- 
ing ‘bouncey out’ in the dark.” 

The door opened and in came Diana. 

"I see nothing wrong with her,” I whispered to 
Don’t, who squeezed my hand, gratitude beaming 
in her eyes. "The scratch makes her skin look all 
the whiter, doesn’t it?” she suggested. 

And that perfectly expressed the Lullingtons’ 
outlook on life. 

"So this” I thought, as I looked at Diana, "is 
the girl Hugh loves.” 

"So this,” I imagined the girl saying, "is his 
mother.” 

She knew me very well of course, but an old 
woman is one thing, the mother of the man you 
mean to marry is another. 

Diana is unlike Don’t. She is prettier, less im- 

117 


GRANNIE 


pulsive, easier to live with, no doubt, but to me 
far less interesting. She is over-sensitive to the 
eccentricities of her family, yet ready enough to 
be proud of them where they are understood. 
Perhaps it is her love for them that makes her 
critical, just as it is Don’t’s love for them that 
makes her glory in their being different to every- 
body in her world. 

Diana wore a high-waisted white muslin dress 
with a blue sash, and in her fichu a pink rose. I 
could hear Hugh asking me if she didn’t look a 
Romney, and she did. 

“You are very smart, darling,” said her father. 
“Are you going to a ball?” (It is just the kind of 
question a girl loves.) 

“Dear John,” said Mrs. Lullington, “Diana has 
worn that gown every evening. She made it her- 
self.” 

“For all that she might be going to a ball,” said 
Mr. Lullington. 

Then Don’t explained to him it was only a 
“half and half”; whereupon he caught her and 
kissed her and asked me if she wasn’t a wise and 
beautiful child. This restored the true Lullington 
atmosphere and we dined. After dinner Don’t, 
in a softened mood, sat hand in hand with Miss 
118 


GRANNIE 


Cherry, to make up, I knew, for her hastiness 
before dinner. 

Miss Cherry looked pleased but a little nervous. 
She wore mittens, and the pressure of Don’t’s 
“making up” squeeze was taking a year’s wear out 
of them. In consideration for the life of her only 
pair of mittens, Miss Cherry withdrew her hand 
from the kind clasp of Don’t, and came over to 
the sofa and sat between me and Mrs. Lullington, 
who whispered, “Do is reading in the back draw- 
ing-room for an examination; we must be quiet 
for a few minutes.” 

Don’t talked in a whisper to Patricia, Diana to 
an elder brother, and I sat and listened to the 
shrill little voice of Miss Cherry raised in plain- 
tive confession to Mrs. Lullington. 

“My dear,” she said, “ a terrible thing has hap- 
pened; I have lost my collecting-card. I have 
searched and searched ! It weighed upon me very 
much until I suddenly thought that the Lord 
could not mean me to collect.” 

Mrs. Lullington said that was quite evident. 
It could mean nothing else. 

“But, dear,” went on Miss Cherry, “a worse 
thing has happened. I have lost my Bible ” 

119 


GRANNIE 


“Then the Lord can’t mean you to read it,” 
came Do’s voice from the back drawing-room. 

I quite understood then how disconcerting a 
thing a voice from the back drawing-room 
might be. 

It must not be imagined that as a rule any one 
spoke at the Lullingtons without every one else 
speaking at the same time, or that any question 
was ever raised without violent arguments en- 
suing. 

When Do spoke the storm broke. Patricia 
listened to it all with wide-open eyes and smiling 
lips. It was all so delightfully young. She en- 
joyed it just as I did; but to her it was all fresh 
and delightful. (When we got home she said to 
me, “Grannie, I had no idea people could be so 
happy without a good cook.” So much for Anna’s 
point of view.) 

During the evening Diana and Don’t Lulling- 
ton sang. They have fresh young voices and they 
sing in tune. All the Lullingtons sing in tune. 
That possibly is one of the reasons why they will 
be bound to suffer all through their lives. 

I imagine the really happy person to be he who 
does not know when another sings out of tune. 
To him all music may be joy. But the man who 
120 


GRANNIE 


knows and who draws in his breath sharply as 
though in pain (which, of course, he is bound to 
be) when another sings flat or sharp, must be 
devoid of all sense of kindness. If he does it in 
order to show how musical he is, then he adds 
to the sin of thoughtlessness that of the lack of 
charity. It is the bounden duty of those who 
know to suffer in silence. It lies within their 
province, and perhaps their power, to prevent 
their immediate relatives singing, and more they 
may not in Christian charity do. 

All through that happy evening at the Lulling- 
tons I was haunted by the sentences Patricia had 
read out to me in her dear, happy voice from the 
letters of her lover, and I went to bed unhappy 
and perturbed. Not less so Benny. “Is Miss 
Patricia quite herself, ma'am?” she asked as she 
brushed my hair. 

“Miss Patricia hasn't been crying, Benny. She 
has been laughing so much.” 

“I didn't mean that, ma'am; I know the state 
you are in when you return from an evening at 
the Warren; but is she herself?” 

“Well, not quite, Benny.” 

“Forgive me, ma'am, is she — in love?” 

“I imagine so, Benny.” 


121 


GRANNIE 


“Will it end happily, ma’am?” 

“I am about to ask that it may.” 

“In your prayers, ma’am, if I may ask the 
question?” 

“In my prayers ” 

“May I take the liberty of asking the same 
thing, ma’am?” 

“Of course.” 

“It might have more weight if mentioned by 
two.” Then apologetically she added, “Where 
two or three are gathered together — the difference 
in a room wouldn’t matter.” 

“Why make a difference, Benny, is there not 
room beside my bed? Think of the children who 
have knelt there.” 

Benny shook her head. She would not pre- 
sume. “I’m always thinking of them, ma’am, and 
now it’s their children that keep us awake. Good 
night, ma’am.” 

When I was young my friends used to tell me 
I should never be old and I believed them. Now 
that I am old it seems difficult to believe I was 
ever young, and most difficult of all to make 
young people believe it. The glamour of youth is 
a thing of the past. We cannot conjure it back if 
we would. 

122 


GRANNIE 


Another characteristic of youth is gone, and 
that is its hardness. The inexorable line it drew, 
dividing right from wrong, grows fainter as we 
grow older. Not that it is less clearly drawn ; but 
our eyes, dimmed with age, cannot see it so plainly 
as we used to, and we realise that there are those 
who, born blind, can never have seen to draw the 
line. So in our old age we see hope that when 
we were young we should not have looked 
for. What I see most clearly, with my old eyes, 
is in every man the child who was once his 
mother’s. And once look upon men as children, 
there is none so bad that in the end he shall not 
be better. The world is his schoolroom, life is 
his teacher, and, thank God, man is not his judge 
or woman either. 

Claudia says there lies danger in every line of 
my gospel. There lurks also, I venture to think, 
hope. 

When I judge Claudia to be in the mood to 
bear it, I read her extracts from my book. When 
I read her the bit about blindness, she waited im- 
patiently till the end and then said, “It would be 
less like a book and more like you, darling, if you 
added, ‘But men have great difficulties to con- 
tend against. They are heavily handicapped, dear 

123 


GRANNIE 


things.' ” So I added, “But we must remember 
men are heavily handicapped, dear things." 

“That’s better," said Claudia, “underline dear 
things ” 

Claudia is ridiculous. She insists that I like 
men better than women — and what if I do! 

Another of the alleviations of growing old is 
the loving attention Benny lavishes upon me. 
There are perhaps two or three nights in the year 
when, owing to the extreme delicacy of my health, 
she feels it her duty to sleep on the sofa in my 
room! 

On those nights, as I lie awake, I can see, by 
the light of the fire, the form of Benny wrapped 
in her red dressing-gown, sleeping on the sofa. 
As I lie and look at her I laugh, until from laugh- 
ter I pass easily enough to tears; tears when I see 
how old, in repose, her dear face looks ; how small 
her hands seem folded, how worn in my service 
they have become. 

I look back to those long years through which 
she and I have lived together, and I feel, however 
little I have done for my children, they have had 
the most lovely example before them of the beau- 
tiful devotion of a good and most unselfish 
woman. What I did for my children, I did be- 
124 


GRANNIE 


cause they were mine. What Benny did for them 
she did because she loved them, and perhaps be- 
cause of the other woman whose children they are. 

As I lie awake watching her, I think that if 
there is one thing for which I pity the young 
people of the present day it is that, when they 
come to my age, there will be no Nannies like 
those of my day. A young nurse said to me not 
long ago, “You see, ma’am, we must think of our 
future. Things are not what they used to be. 
We can’t wait to be turned away from a place at 
fifty. The families are not what they used to be. 
A nurse in the old days used to be able to count, 
more or less, on ten children!” 

That was a new and sobering train of thought 
and enough to keep me awake. My Patricia, for 
instance, starting off with the promise of a family 
of ten, exacted by the little nursery maid who 
now wheels Bounce, when Bounce wishes to be 
wheeled. It was unthinkable ! The nursery maid 
had no right to demand it. Times have changed. 
She must marry and have children of her own 
and not expect others to have them for her. 

At moments like these Benny awakes and asks 
if I called. 

“No, Benny,” I said, “I am thinking of Mrs. 

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GRANNIE 


Richard's nursery maid Annie, will she make a 
good nurse?" 

“She may, ma’am. But her heart is not in it. 
She’s always thinking of men. There’s not a life- 
guardsman in London that doesn’t know Miss 
Bounce by sight.’’ 

I was right. Annie would marry. Patricia 
would be under no obligation. . . . 


126 


XI 


Don’t Lullington has the kindest inspirations 
of any one I know, man, woman or child. She 
is always devising some way of making some one 
happy, and she works in those channels through 
which she knows will flow the waters of their 
deepest content. 

Aided and abetted — after that evening spent 
at the Lullingtons — by Patricia, she rose to great 
heights, and having confided to Patricia that 
what, at the moment, weighed heaviest on her 
heart was the general despondency of Miss 
Cherry’s nature, she held her breath and Patricia’s 
hand while she thought deeply, then triumphantly 
she announced the flash of an idea. 

Now Miss Cherry’s trouble in life is her uncer- 
tainty as to whether or no her neighbours like her 
and appreciate her efforts to be kind and friendly 
towards them. She is afraid much of her effort 
is wasted because misunderstood. She says her 
reserve is counted coldness; her modesty, pride; 
her diffidence, weakness. 


127 


GRANNIE 


All this Patricia learnt from Don’t and handed 
straight on to me, deviating, she assured me, 
neither from the paths of truth nor from the by- 
roads of accuracy. 

I had already known that Don’t played “swops” 
with Miss Cherry; but to little practical purpose. 
Even that most heartening of games left her un- 
convinced. It is a game played by the Lulling- 
tons, and is an exchange of compliments said of 
the one to the other by a third party. If Don’t, 
for instance, heard something very delightful said 
of Miss Cherry, she must tell Miss Cherry of it, 
the strict rules of the game being that Miss 
Cherry must tell Don’t one in return — in fact 
“swops,” its name, best describes it. I invite any 
one in low spirits to set about to collect swops and 
exchange them at the earliest opportunity. They 
must feel the better for it, and they will be sur- 
prised to find how friendly a place the world is. 
But Don’t, in the charming modesty of her dis- 
position, felt that it would be unlikely that Miss 
Cherry could have enough swops ready in ex- 
change for all the nice things Don’t forced people 
to say of Miss Cherry, so she didn’t stick to the 
strict rules of the game. 

But even that didn’t cheer Miss Cherry. Then 
128 


GRANNIE 


it was that Don’t had the idea she imparted to 
Patricia; the immediate outcome of which was 
that Don’t asked Miss Cherry to meet her, four 
days from then, on the staircase. (The staircase 
in the Lullingtons’ house is the place sacred to 
secret talks.) 

On the day appointed, therefore, on the third 
step from the top (Don’t’s feet on the sixth, and 
Miss Cherry’s on the fourth), sat Don’t and the 
Cherubim. 

Don’t asked Miss Cherry if she would believe 
nice things said of dead people? 

And Miss Cherry, folding her two little hands 
reverently, murmured, “Of the dead all things 
may be said.” 

“Well, then,” said Don’t, “are you afraid of 
death, Cherubim darling?” and Miss Cherry said 
on the contrary it was a release to which she was 
daily looking forward. 

Patricia, who was watching from above, says 
Don’t opened her eyes at that. 

“Well, Cherubim darling, I’ve done something 
to show you, to make you, to force you to believe 
how much everybody loves and respects you. I 
could cut out the respects, if you would rather. 
I have written your obituary notice.” 


129 


GRANNIE 


Miss Cherry’s hands, I am told, went up with 
a gesture of awed appreciation. 

“And,” said Don’t, “the account of your fu- 
neral! It’s here. Can you bear it? You have no 
idea how fond everybody was of you.” 

Out of her pocket Don’t drew a neatly folded 
column of printed matter, so like the column of 
a newspaper as to deceive Miss Cherry, who never 
could, even on ordinary occasions, believe her 
eyes. 

“Shall I read it?” asked Don’t. 

“Please, dear,” said Miss Cherry with trembling 
lips. 

Don’t read it. Miss Cherry listened, appar- 
ently unmoved, to the description of the univer- 
sal expression of sorrow ; she bore with equanimity 
the reference to the ever-ready help she had been 
to the clergy; but when Don’t read that a beau- 
tiful wreath had been sent by the Earl and Coun- 
tess of Bruxton, it was more than she could 
bear. 

“Not Lord Bruxton, Don’t!” And Don’t 
nodded, “And all the Lullingtons.” 

Miss Cherry waved that aside. That was only 
to be expected ; they could hardly do less. 

“Shall I read them all?” asked Don’t. 

130 


GRANNIE 


Miss Cherry said she could hardly bear it — such 
kindness. “Are you sure about Lord Bruxton?” 

“Quite, quite,” said Don’t ; then hurriedly — she 
was not entirely without shame even in her kind- 
ness — she added, “the most touching thing of all 
was when I took the thing into the printer’s to be 
printed. The man behind the counter clasped his 
head and said, ‘Dead — Miss Cherry dead — it is 
impossible; she was buying birdseed, next door, 
only a few days ago/ and when I said it wasn’t 
true he was so pleased! That shows!” 

“But was he not very much surprised at the 
notice?” 

“No,” said Don’t; “he said it was a thing which 
was becoming every day more common, because 
every one felt what a pity it was to leave unsaid, 
till after death, those kind things that, said during 
life, would give such immense pleasure. There’s 
going to be a society for it.” 

As a woman treasures for years, under lock and 
key, the description of her wedding, and reads 
it at those moments when the romance of life 
seems to become dulled and dimmed, so little Miss 
Cherry, I am sure, keeps — under lock and button- 
hook — the description of her funeral ; and that she 
looks at it often, I am sure, and that she no longer 

131 


GRANNIE 


Criticises the frivolity of the Bruxton week-end 
parties, I know. 

The result of Don’t’s kind thought is this — 
Miss Cherry takes much more for granted the 
goodwill and affection of her neighbours; she no 
longer imagines herself cut after church, avoided 
in the post office, or shunned in the sandy lane. 

But when Miss Cherry, after church, drawing 
Don’t aside, whispered, “Show me the place,” 
Don’t for the moment was nonplussed; but she 
indicated the place, and Miss Cherry was seen 
to visit it later — alone. 

Claudia says it is ridiculous of me u believe 
all those girls tell me; but I choose to believe 
what I want to believe and what it amuses me 
to believe. 

“The Lullingtons are all mad,” she adds, and I 
say I like them mad. She says so, does she; but 
she wouldn’t like them less if they were a little 
less mad. 

I am not so sure. 

What I enjoyed most about Miss Cherry and 
Don’t was Patricia’s telling of it, because to tell it 
she sat on the end of my bed and I loved looking 
at her. She seemed to me such a child until I 
remembered that she was horribly much of a 
132 


GRANNIE 


woman. I tried to go to sleep and to shut my 
eyes to the fact; but I opened them again and 
stared into the darkness and I saw no light until 
the blind became framed in silver. Then I stole 
into Patricia’s room and, finding her fast asleep, 
I wondered what kind of a man he was for whom 
the child-woman smiled so tenderly in her sleep. 


133 


XII 


“My small box, Benny,” I say with a strange feel- 
ing out of all proportion to the size of the box, 
when I prepare for my visit to Bettine. What 
is there about one child — although we love them 
all alike — that has the power to pull at our heart- 
strings, to play on our emotions, to soothe our sor- 
rows, to share our joys, to understand us to the 
very foundations of our being? 

So understanding a thing is my Bettine. She 
and I are mother and daughter, yet one; parent 
and child, yet children together. With no other 
child do I laugh so much; with no other child 
have I had reason to weep so much, for she has 
had a sorrow greater than any of her brothers 
and sisters have been called upon to bear. She 
has lost an only child — a child she loved as I love 
her — but she laughs. Is it that her husband 
should not guess at the depth of her yearning? — 
that I should not grieve? As if a laugh could 
blind the eyes of a mother! I love all my chil- 
dren dearly, but it is Bettine I bless every moment 
of my life for her life. 

134 


GRANNIE 


People ask me if she is pretty? If I dared I 
should laugh at them for asking such a question. 
Is a sunbeam pretty? a May day pretty? a soft 
shower in springtime pretty? a shadow on water 
pretty? 

“You will be happy now you are going to Bet- 
tine,” said Claudia, feigning a sadness and a jeal- 
ousy she did not feel. 

“Am I never happy with Claudia?” I asked, tak- 
ing her hand. 

“Not so completely, darling,” she said, and I 
laughed. “You see,” she added, “I keep you in 
order; Bettine spoils you. If she spoilt you less 
my task would be easier.” 

Bettine lives in old Chelsea. She and Derek 
are firmly convinced that there is no other house 
in the world like theirs — none so charming, which 
opinion I share. There is certainly no other stair- 
case which, whether you go up or down it, leads 
to something so charming and delightful ; nor one 
whose banisters are so deftly twisted, nor one 
whose steps are so wide and easy (considering the 
size of the house). 

The rooms are panelled and the windows of the 
back rooms look on to a charming garden, from 
beyond which can be heard snatches of song sung 

135 


GRANNIE 


by Italian sculptors at work. Also there sings in 
the garden itself (and in good English we may 
presume), at those times when it must sing, a 
blackbird. One might imagine, judging by Bet- 
tine’s excitement over it, that it was the only 
blackbird in the world. No, it must have a mate 
or she would not be content. Even the sparrows 
are precious in her eyes, not on account of their 
scarceness perhaps, but because she chooses to 
look upon them as miracles. The unfolding of 
each lilac bud holds out the tenderest of promises 
to Bettine. 

As I drove through the streets of London, on 
my way to Chelsea and Bettine, I sought to find 
good in everything, which must be my attitude 
of mind while staying with her, and I found in 
my taxi-driver something of that gentleness of 
spirit which is said to have belonged peculiarly to 
the people of ancient Japan. I have read that, in 
those days of long ago, it was held bad manners 
on the part of a young and strong man drawing 
a rickshaw to overtake and pass an old and weak 
man drawing a rickshaw. To have done so would 
have shown, on the part of the young man, a 
desire to glory in the superiority of his strength. 
So it behoved him to go slowly and not to pass 
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GRANNIE 


the old man. It was a gentle trait in the character 
of a delightful people. Whether the traveller, 
supposing him to have been a foreigner sojourning 
in the country, found it so it does not concern 
us to say, nor could we if we would. 

The spirit that in those long-ago days cost the 
traveller a little time cost me, in London, certainly 
two or three twopences. My taxi-driver showed 
a spirit of gentleness that was not characteristic 
of the driver of the old four-wheeler, for instance. 
No silvern speech was his in congested traffic, for 
gentleness in those days was not paid for at so 
much a minute. But my taxi-man would stop 
and wave a hand of kindly encouragement to the 
coster and his donkey; would draw up (his en- 
gine jiggeding the while) to let a coal cart pass. 
How he responded to the coalman’s wink I could 
not, from the imperturbability of the back of his 
head, judge; but he cannot surely have let that 
pass, for, if I know not taxi-drivers, I know men. 

Bettine says it is well the taxi-driver should 
learn the gentleness of tolerance, because if car- 
ried into his private life it would make him a 
pleasanter husband to live with. And to make 
him that, at the expense of a few twopences, she 
holds cheap. 


137 


GRANNIE 


A visit to Bettine may as well be described 
typically — not that the same things happen each 
time I go there; but the same kinds of things — 
things that don’t happen when I stay with Anna 
or Cynthia. 

Particularly do I remember one winter visit 
when Bettine was expecting a cook to see her — 
her own dear cook having had to go home to take 
care of a father, lately changed from a difficult 
husband into a disconsolate widower. 

Bettine stood at the window watching. She 
knew how valuable are first impressions. It was 
a winter’s afternoon, but not yet dark. I sat 
before the fire and Bettine kept me in touch with 
street happenings. 

In course of time she told me a delicious-look- 
ing woman, in a bonnet, was searching vaguely 
for a number. Bettine was certain the delicious 
woman was the cook looking for her, Bettine’s, 
number. She was seized with apprehension lest 
the delicious woman should give up the search in 
despair. “I love her already,” she vowed. 

“Darling,” I said, “if she gives up so easily she 
wouldn’t be the kind of cook you would want. If 
at the critical moment such a woman upset the 
soup ” 


138 


GRANNIE 


“But she has such a dear face. Wait!” 

Bettine rang the bell, and over the top of the 
stairs she said to the parlourmaid, “Go out, please, 
and tell that nice-looking woman in a bonnet that 
this is 35, the number she is looking for. Run 
Huccabuck!” 

And Huccabuck ran, as every one in the house 
does at Bettine’s bidding, and came back breath- 
less to say the woman was looking for 49 and 
had found it. Bettine was disappointed, but re- 
found happiness directly afterwards in the thought 
that, as the woman at 49 had a disagreeable hus- 
band, it was only fair she should have a good 
cook, besides which it was possible that a good 
cook might make the husband a much nicer and 
happier man. 

When Bettine’s cook came, she walked straight 
to the house and turned out to be quite as nice 
as the 49 one had looked, and Bettine, having 
engaged her, sank into the chair at the other side 
of the fireplace and said, “I know I shall love her.” 

When I asked if she could cook, Bettine said, 
“Would she be a cook if she couldn’t?” and we 
laughed. 

The cook, of course, turned out to be an ad- 
mirable cook. Bettine’s domestic luck again. 

139 


GRANNIE 


As riches go Bettine and Derek are not well off. 
They cannot afford to buy most of the things 
they buy, therefore the buying is a great delight 
to them, and to the household a great excitement. 
Bettine is afraid there are treasures bought that 
the servants pay for by eating less. I beg her not 
to worry about that, and she promises not to. 

Derek suffers at times with Bettine, I know. 
He submits to crockery and quaint pots and pans 
— (he was brought up with silver entree dishes) — 
and he has learnt to turn upside down, without 
accident, most shapes and forms of small cas- 
seroles. He says he likes matting in his dressing- 
room and his tea out of a brown pot, and a bare 
dining-room table. But at times he finds Bet- 
tine^ enthusiasm a little trying, because, like most 
Englishmen, he has a wholesome dread of being 
made conspicuous. Perhaps the greatest ordeal 
he ever passed through was at the play — Henry 
of Navarre — when Bettine, in an agony lest Henry 
should drink of the deadly potion handed to him 
by his wife (in ignorance of its nature), called out, 
“The ring's green!" 

The ring, it may be remembered, was set with 
a red stone which was warranted to turn green 
when in close proximity to poison. Henry no 
140 


GRANNIE 


doubt heard Bettine for, just in time, he dashed 
the poisoned cup to the ground and the audience 
breathed again. To Bettine King Henry owed 
his life. To Bettine the audience owed a dis- 
traction; but poor Derek in an agony implored 
her to be quiet, which, having saved the life of 
the king, she was perfectly willing to be. 

Claudia would never have done such a thing. 
Turned rubies green as grass, she would have re- 
mained dignified through it all. 

Why should children born each of the same 
parents, brought up by the same nurse in the 
same surroundings, grow up to be so different? 

Bettine is an adorable audience and she carries 
that gift into everyday life. As a child she used 
to say, “Oh, do be funny.” 

She has the good sense not to say that now, 
knowing how extinguishing a thing it is, but she 
is always ready to be amused. 

My summer visit to Bettine I pay in June. 
During that month there falls an anniversary. 
It is a day on which I could not be separated from 
her. On that day in June we breakfast early. 
Also a little more quietly than usual — or do I im- 
agine that? I see Derek look at Bettine with a 
look in his eyes just a little different to that of 

141 


GRANNIE 


other days— or do I imagine that? His eyes seem 
to express what he dares not trust himself to 
speak. 

Directly after breakfast Bettine and I leave the 
house. In a lowered voice Huccabuck tells the 
cabman where to drive, and softly she closes the 
door. We drive to the station, a big, noisy sta- 
tion. Out of the train we wait for pours a stream 
of men bound citywards, fathers most of them 
working for their children. The train takes us 
through the slums of London, past the sad, sad 
back windows of London, out into God’s glorious 
country and, after an hour or two, stops at a tiny 
wayside station. Out on to the gravel path we 
step, and, passing through the little country sta- 
tion, we find a fly waiting for us. Into the fly 
we get and the horse starts slowly on its way. 

“Wild roses,” whispers Bettine, and her eyes, 
wet with unshed tears, look up to the hedges 
through which we pass, and her hand steals into 
mine. When we have gone some distance the 
driver turns and, at a nod from Bettine, draws up 
to the side of the road and she jumps out. (She 
could do it quite as easily if the horse were going 
at its fastest pace, so slow a going is it, but she 
would not hurt its feelings.) She cuts trails of 
142 


GRANNIE 


wild roses. Then she gets into the fly again and, 
of those branches, deftly twisting and twining 
them, she makes a wreath, a garland, a crown — 
whatever one likes to call it. Then she lays the 
crown — I choose to call it — on the seat before us. 

“What a day!” she whispers. “Look at the 
sky,” and I look. It is blue, brilliantly blue, and 
unclouded. 

“I will get out here,” she says, as we come to a 
steep hill, and the old horse, glad of the excuse, 
stops and pulls at the long grass on the bank. I 
am not allowed to get out, and beside the carriage 
Bettine walks with her hand on the door. 

At the top of the hill the horse stops again and 
looks round as much as to say, the old one must 
get out now, and out I get. 

On our left is a little grey church, so old, so 
peaceful. Guardian of the valley below, it has 
stood for centuries, aspiring heavenwards. We 
pass under the lych-gate — Bettine leading the 
way — into the little church. It is cool after the 
heat outside. I shiver. 

Up the centre of the aisle is a row of tiny chairs 
in single file, old oak chairs for the children of 
the parish to sit upon. What child would not 
go to church to sit upon such a chair? On one 

143 


GRANNIE 


in particular Bettine's hand rests. On it she lays 
the crown of roses and beside it she kneels, and 
beside her I kneel. Then we go out into the sun- 
shine again, and I know that on a little cross be- 
fore which we stand is written the name of Derek, 
aged three, but I cannot see to read it. I leave 
Bettine and I go and sit looking over the valley 
which, now bathed in sunshine, once lay, to my 
Bettine, in the deep shadow of death. 

In a few minutes she joins me, and, slipping 
down on to the grass beside me, she says, “I see 
him so plainly, so plainly.” I nod. So do I, 
perhaps not less clearly. 

“Rolling down the hill,” she adds smiling, and 
I nod again. 

“It was on this hill we sat, the big Derek and I, 
and made plans to send him to Eton. He was to 
have gone there at whatever cost to ourselves 
— because Derek was there. ... He would have 
been a cricketer — he promised so well — he had a 
natural swerve in his bowling. ... He was put 
down for Lord's the day he was born, do you 
remember? Then he was to have been a soldier. 
He couldn't have stood an office life, could he? 
He hated sitting still. ... He was so brave, 
wasn't he? He didn't know what fear was. He 
144 


GRANNIE 


would have been so chivalrous. I love that in a 
man. He was so kind to younger children . . . 
there was nothing of the bully in him, was there? 
The big Derek rather wanted him to be a poli- 
tician ; but I didn't — he was too ” 

“Honest?” I suggest, and Bettine smiles. 

“Humbugging mummy, who loves a politician,” 
says Bettine, and her mother, who really does love 
the right kind of politician, says it is perhaps be- 
cause they are humbugs too that she loves them. 

Through little Derek's schooldays — that never 
came — we go step by step, Bettine leading the 
way. She knows more about it, of course, than 
the mother of many sons. 

Then, in trying to fathom the mystery of why 
things happen, Bettine says perhaps, in some way 
or other, great sorrow would have come to the 
little Derek, and that she could not have borne. 
Then she tries to comfort herself by thinking that 
perhaps she was not the right kind of mother to 
have brought him up; but against that there are 
obviously so many people who are not the right 
mothers whose children live and are happy, and 
who become good cricketers and even better men. 

“Was the pain of parting from him less, it's no 
use trying to understand,” she says. 


145 


GRANNIE 


I look at Bettine’s baby face — it is that still — 
and in it I see through its smiles and tears an 
enormous capacity for suffering. (Every one who 
possesses sympathy must also possess that.) I 
see in her face too an enormous capacity for hap- 
piness — that too goes with sympathy. 

A shadow falls across us. “Do I intrude ?” asks 
a gentle voice. We look up and see the old rector 
of the parish, who each year says just as gently, 
“Do I intrude?” and each year Bettine makes the 
same reply and he takes her two hands in his and 
says, “My child, my child,” and his thoughts, I 
know, are with that other child, and I know that 
he knows how near to Bettine is the spirit of that 
child, not only on this summer’s day but always; 
through dark days and bright days, through win- 
ter, through summer, in the lonely places of the 
world, in the crowded places — his hand in hers, 
leading her. 

We lunch with old Mr. Goodheart at the Rec- 
tory. It is all very quiet and peaceful. He talks 
just as much as we wish and no more. He shows 
us his dear friends, the birds and the flowers 
and his books. He gives us the food on which he 
lives, and delicious food it is — vegetables beauti- 
146 


GRANNIE 


fully cooked, fruit deliciously served on cool green 
leaves. 

By this old man it seems to me the religion we 
need is taught. It is full, satisfying, spiritual and 
so simple. There is none of the restlessness here, 
the longing for something fresh that disturbs those 
whose religion is as a thing dead, and whose arms 
are held out ready to embrace anything that seems 
new. From the little church on the hill are 
preached hope, two thousand years old, forgive- 
ness, two thousand years old, pity, two thousand 
years old, and love older than the world itself. 
Nothing new. Children are bidden to come and 
they come; the old to be comforted and they find 
comfort; and when the old have lived their lives 
here they go to that other world, where there 
are many mansions prepared for them, and if 
Ellen, the old widow of the stone-mason, thinks 
they have been built, some of them, by her 
Ebenezer and his fathers before him, and looks to 
a mansion that shall be but a glorified edition 
of the cottage that has been her home and theirs 
here on earth, what matters it? Heaven she has 
learnt is but another home; can it be strange 
to her? If she looks for that Christ she has 
served since she was a little child, shall she not 

147 


GRANNIE 


know Him? Will her old eyes not be satisfied? 
Will her old hands need to touch the wounds? 
Shall she not know Him without that? Are 
His wounds not hers? And as He has healed 
her wounds, has she not helped to heal His? 

As we walk through the village we meet old 
Ellen. She feigns surprise and forgets it later 
when she says, “When I drew the curtain this 
morning I says to myself, It's his day — dear 
lamb!” 

“Yes, Ellen,” says Bettine, “it's his day, fresh 
from the hands of God.” 

“Yes, love, it's just that,” says Ellen, “fresh and 
clean. Every flower it seems has had its little 
face washed pure. He didn’t like his face washed, 
did he, not more than any other boy? But it paid 
for the washing, didn’t it, ma’am, so fair and 
lovely it was.” 

“Are you going to ask us in, Ellen?” says Bet- 
tine. 

“But surely, I’ve been watching this hour or 
more.” 


148 


XIII 


It seems to me that the striking difference be- 
tween Bettine’s friends and Anna’s lies in the 
wearing of collars or no collars, rather. Bettine’s 
friends wear none unless they be muslin and 
turned down. Anna’s friends wear them boned 
to an extreme height. In their ears Anna’s friends 
wear single pearls of enormous size and value. 
Bettine’s friends wear gipsy ear-rings, or dangling 
ear-rings that sway pleasantly as their wearers 
talk earnestly. These small differences in outside 
things make a very great difference in inside 
things. Anna’s friends play bridge by day and 
night. Bettine’s affect lectures and read books 
limply bound. They talk in sweet low voices of 
beautiful thoughts found presumedly within the 
limp covers of these books, or perhaps in life 
itself. They spend their patrimony on branches 
of greenery at some seasons of the year ; at others 
in branches of blossom; and they look forward 
to the spring of every year as a child looks for- 
ward to its birthday treat. Anna’s friends go to 

149 


GRANNIE 


the kind of lectures smart women affect, and find 
there the opportunity to doze which they prob- 
ably would not seek or find at home. 

Bettine’s friends are married to budding diplo- 
matists, to literary men, to secretaries of well- 
known people. 

Anna’s friends are mostly in full bloom and are, 
in gardening terms, free flowerers. Among them 
I have met very charming men whose hearts, 
when they are not in their money markets, are in 
their rose gardens. 

Bettine’s friends have been known to wear tea- 
gowns made by their cooks. I have learnt, since 
I left Winthorpe, that there is no servant so re- 
markable, so wonderful, so devoted as the single- 
handed cook of a young couple. The more de- 
voted the couple, the more wonderful becomes the 
cook, not necessarily in culinary matters, but quite 
possibly. Romance spurs her on. It is to her 
the breath of life. 

Bettine’s friends give charming little dinners 
where the table is bare — in the literal sense of the 
word — where the knives are not made to cut alone, 
where the glass looks old, and where the flowers 
are arranged with a view to beauty as well as 
to economy. 

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GRANNIE 


I have seen five pink tulips grace the table at 
one of Bettine’s dinners, and, placed rightly by 
one who knows, and with the rather bare side to 
one who knows, they can look beautiful. Each 
tulip, it must be remembered, is burdened with 
the message of spring; and if they should open 
their hearts too widely Bettine has ways of re- 
straining them from too great a want of reserve, 
and a gentle way of shutting them up without 
hurting their feelings by resorting to the indignity 
of pink cotton or silk. Bettine thinks spring mes- 
sages should be whispered. 

In Bettine’s house I have seen the heads of 
roses floating like water-lilies, in bowls. There 
must be thousands of heads of roses lying uncared- 
for in rich men’s gardens that might be sent to 
couples in old Chelsea who possess among their 
other blessings “Munstead” bowls; and what 
couple worthy of their environment does not? A 
rose without a stalk is as useless to a gardener as 
is an umbrella without spokes to the rest of us. 

On Anna’s table the roses must have stalks three 
feet long. The silver is only a little more valuable 
than the lace and linen on which it stands. The 
food is quite as good as Anna knows how to order, 
and that is very good indeed. But her dinners 

151 


GRANNIE 


lack the charm of Bettine’s. They lack, too, the 
element of surprise. Bettine has a parlourmaid 
whose beauty is distracting : it is clothed in mus- 
lin and Valenciennes lace and lends an added 
charm to the dishes she hands. 

When I stay with Bettine I frequent buses — 
for choice those drawn by horses, because in motor 
buses, Bettine tells me, no one says anything 
funny. There is hardly the time, and what time 
there is must be spent in keeping one’s balance. 

Once only in a motor bus did I hear anything 
nice, and that was on a very hot summer’s day. 
The bus was full and a gentle voice at my right 
said, “Neighbours are hot things, are they not?” 
I looked round and down to find the tiniest neigh- 
bour in the world, a dear old lady years older than 
myself, and just half the size. 

It was in a horse bus that Bettine met with the 
cocoa adventure that she loved. The conductor, 
in offering the fares a sample of cocoa, began with 
Bettine. Now Bettine had no precedent to follow 
and didn’t know how to reject so rare a gift ; but, 
being as anxious not to hurt the conductor as she 
was to escape the sample, she said she didn’t care 
for cocoa, she never drank it; whereupon the 
company in the bus began to talk of cocoa, its 
152 


GRANNIE 


nutritive properties, its power to cheer, and its 
many other virtues. One man held forth at some 
length on the varieties of cocoa, and then, folding 
his hands, announced that he was a grocer's assist- 
ant on his holiday and ought to know. 

A battle royal ensued between the grocer's 
assistant and an old lady on the merits of cocoa 
shreds. The old lady maintained they were not 
appreciated as they ought to be. “Only two- 
pence a pound and all you have to do is to boil 
them long enough." 

“For how many years, madam?" asked the 
grocer's assistant. “Shreds? Trash!" 

Finally a very stout woman turned to Bettine 
and said, “You should try nibs, the most bilious 
person can drink them." 

Poor Bettine, I should say a person who looks 
less bilious never walked this earth. But 
she wouldn't for worlds have missed the scene 
to which, in the telling, I have done but scant 
justice. 

There is a bus story which is now ancient his- 
tory. On the 27th of February 1900, Shrove 
Tuesday, I happened by good fortune to be in a 
bus when the ticket inspector announced Cronje's 
surrender. “And," he added, “I shouldn't be sur- 

153 


GRANNIE 


prised if Ladysmith was relieved to-day too.” 
Whereupon an old man in the corner of the bus 
leant forward and said, “And pancakes too ! Why, 
it's too many good things on one day.” 

I would not tell Bettine how poor he looked. 


154 


XIV 


Dick and Anna have six children. Patricia is 
the eldest; then comes Primula; below her again 
Guy, who is at school; another boy Freddie in 
the schoolroom; and in the nursery two babies — 
one in the bundle stage christened Ponsonby and 
threatened with the nickname of Pounce, and a 
little girl aged four named Blanche, called by 
courtesy Bounce. 

I am sure she could bounce, so round is she, 
so delicious and at times so beautifully solemn. 
That she thinks deeply is evident. What mostly 
she thinks about we may hear, or there are those 
of us who may hear, twenty years hence. But 
I shall not be among them, therefore to hear it I 
must go to my dreams. 

I think she may bore the man she marries by 
telling him all she thought as a child. A man 
must love his wife very dearly to care to hear all 
she said as a child, all she didn’t say, all she 
thought, all she didn’t think and all her nurses 
thought she thought, when he is only waiting to 

155 


GRANNIE 


tell her of the many things he did before she was 
born. 

I left Bettine’s house in time to arrive at Anna’s 
by luncheon, at which meal, in my honour, Bounce 
and Freddy were to appear. They appeared, 
Bounce very clean and quite pleased to see me. 
But there was something else she had seen “froo 
ve dining-room door.” Had I? I had seen noth- 
ing, so she whispered to me what it was — a choco- 
late pudding! 

I said it tickled. I meant the whisper: she 
thought I meant the pudding and was frightfully 
interested. “While it goes down, does it?” she 
asked, incredulity expressed in every tone of her 
voice. 

When we went into the dining-room the sight 
of the chocolate cream caused her to draw a short 
ecstatic breath inwards. She looked from the 
pudding to me, and kissing me again with greater 
warmth, gurgled, “Vat’s it.” 

Then she was lifted on to her chair and in- 
stantly she began to slide oil it. There is a slid- 
ing scale in the degrees of a child’s shyness. 

“Bo-unce,” said Fraulein, “seet up.” 

Fraulein showed Bounce how to do it and 
Bounce painfully followed her example. 

156 


GRANNIE 


“Dat vill do — not so ’igh, Bounce. Dere — so!” 

There remained Bounce looking very good and 
surprisingly slim. She has the same power of 
elongating herself as a canary has. To get a 
canary to do it, tap on the bottom of the cage. 
To get Bounce to do it Fraulein must set the 
pace. I preferred Bounce round. 

“Sit down, darling,” I whispered, and she 
rounded to order. 

“Gan Gan,” she said. 

“Darling,” I replied. 

“Gan Gan,” she repeated. 

“Yes, I’m, Gan Gan,” I said with some pride. 

“Gan Gan ” 

“Yes, darling.” 

“Be quiet, Bounce,” said her mother. 

“Must I?” said Bounce; “it does hurt so.” 

“What happens when you aren't good, 
Blanche?” 

Bounce looked down and a faint pink stole over 
her face and lost itself in her curls. It was evi- 
dent she knew exactly what happened, and that it 
was in some way connected with chocolate cream 
I guessed. There was a silence; all eyes were 
upon Bounce. Then, taking courage, she looked 
up and around, vainly seeking a sympathetic eye, 

157 


GRANNIE 


a trembling lip. I had difficulty in hiding both. 
Finally she fixed her eye upon the butler. “Tar- 
ter,” she said, addressing him. 

“Yes, miss,” answered Carter with the alacrity 
of the true child-lover. 

“Vere’s a fly cwawling on your head.” 

“Thank you, miss,” said Carter. 

“It's vewy tame,” she said, tremendously in- 
terested. 

“Blanche,” said her mother, “what have I told 
you?” 

Bounce folded her hands and said very softly 
and quickly, “Not to yeat wif my mouf full — not 
to walk in puggles — not to speak to Tarter ven 
uvver ladies and genklemen are vere — not to say 
darlin’ ” 

“Blanche,” said her mother sternly. 

“Nannie letted me” — this triumphantly spoken. 

“Blanche,” repeated her mother. 

So far the conversation had consisted almost 
entirely of two words, Blanche and Bounce, said 
in varying tones of expostulation. 

“Now, Bounce, be good,” I whispered. 

“Are you laughing at me?” she asked tenta- 
tively. 

“No, darling,” I answered reassuringly. 

158 


GRANNIE 


“What are you at me?” 

To that there seemed no answer. 

After quiet a long time Bounce said, “Gan 
Gan, vill you lean forward, pelease.” 

“Why, darling ?” I asked. 

“Because I can’t see Henry’s face. It’s all right 
now, I can. Don’t you fink it’s a nice face?” 

“Bounce,” said her mother, and Henry for the 
moment relinquished his office of potato-bearer. 

“Vich do you like best, Henry or James?” 
gasped Bounce. She must know at all costs. The 
cost had quickly to be met. 

“Go upstairs, Blanche,” said her mother. 

“Tarter,” with the dumb fury of the true child- 
lover in his eyes, drew out the chair and Bounce 
slid down and, with immense dignity and only one 
despairing look at the pudding, left the room. 

“That child,” said her mother, “has the most 
vulgar tastes. I can’t think where she gets them 
from.” 

“She likes p’licemen awfully,” said Freddy, 
agreeing quickly with his mother. 

“Fred day” said Fraulein, “eat your pudding — 
so!” 

Freddy applied himself to the pudding. There 

159 


GRANNIE 


was no knowing at what moment he might share 
the fate of Bounce, so it behoved him to hurry. 

“Don’t splutter like that, Freddy. You’re splut- 
tering your pudding all over the table.” 

“I was only copying my sweetheart,” he plead- 
ed, his eyes clouding. 

“Go upstairs,” said his mother. 

“Half a jiff,” said Freddy, piling up his spoon 
with pudding. 

“Go upstairs.” 

It was like the dear old story of the ten little 
nigger boys. One by one, it seemed, the children 
must go. 

I asked who Freddy’s sweetheart was of such 
curiously unreserved habits, and Anna said she 
was very charming and possibly she might have 
a lisp, but she never spluttered, of course. 

“You over-excite the children, dear grannie. 
They mustn’t come down again. Bounce is ter- 
rible. She was even as a baby. She began as soon 
as she could talk to call every man she met 
daddy.” 

“She calls the postman daddy, at least she did 
once when she was little. He wasn’t ever, was 
he?” asked Freddy, making for the door. 

160 


GRANNIE 


V 




\ 


“Freddy,” said his mother, “what did I tell 
you?” 

“Not to speak with my mouth full — not to 
splutter. Is the postman anybody’s daddy?” 

“Fredday ! ” said Fraulein, almost in tears. 

“Keep your hair on,” replied Freddy, “I’m 
goin’; give a chap a chance. What’s the fruit?” 
— this with a last lingering look. 

“You can’t have any,” said his mother. 

“I guessed that long ago. It is hard,” he said, 
turning the door handle sharply and letting it go 
with a run. 

“Freddy!” 

Freddy disappeared and his mother wondered 
why her children were so naughty and their grand- 
mother wondered if they were naughty at all. It 
takes a younger woman than a grandmother to 
judge. It seemed to me I could have kept quiet 
anything so small and delicious as Bounce. 

That afternoon I was given my chance. 

Anna wondered if dear grannie would keep 
Bounce quiet for an hour or so because the nurse 
had to go to Brixton to see a sick father, one 
nursery maid to the gymnasium with Freddy, 
Fraulein to a French class with Petunia, Patricia 

161 


GRANNIE 


had an appointment with the dressmaker, while 
she herself 

“My dear Anna,” I said, “if nobody in the whole 
world was engaged there is nothing I should like 
better than an hour with Bounce.” 

So the Nannie to her father, the nursery maid 
to Macpherson’s, Patricia to the dressmaker, Anna 
to keep her appointment with the face masseuse, 
and in a drawing-room in Cadogan Square one old 
woman, one young child; in life at the opposite 
ends, on the sofa close together. 

I began by asking Bounce what she had been 
doing since luncheon. She calmly said she had 
been eating chocolate pudding, surprised that I 
could have imagined her occupied in any other 
way. 

“All ve time,” she said, nodding her head. 

I asked her where she had got it from, and she 
said “Tarter.” 

Then, by way of changing the subject, I ad- 
mired her hair. She invited me to pull out a curl 
as far as it would go. I pulled it. 

“Farver,” said Bounce, looking with some diffi- 
culty over her shoulder, “a little farver,” she said. 
And a little farther I pulled it. It reached to her 
waist. 


162 


GRANNIE 


"It is long,” she said with a sigh. “My good- 
ens, it is long.” 

I let go the curl and it sprang back into its 
place. “Now it’s short,” she said sadly. 

I asked her for a curl to keep. She shook her 
head. 

“Not one, darling?” I pleaded. 

“Nope.” 

Then, softening towards her importunate 
grannie, she proceeded to divulge the secret of 
curls hidden away “underneef,” which only 
showed her to be greedier of her treasures than I 
had thought her. 

Bounce ducked her head to show me the “un- 
derneef” curls. “Young curls,” she said with 
ecstasy; “young vuns,” she repeated, and I said 
how young they looked and how soft. 

“You are silly/’ she said, and I felt absurdly 
crushed. 

“Young vuns,” she said under her breath. Then 
a fresh idea struck her. “Gan Gan, do you know 
what Fweddy calls this room?” 

I said I hadn't the slightest idea. 

“Then I'll whisper. He says — it’s the beasti- 
fullest room he ever saw because there are no 
toys in it nor anyfing. You aren’t amusing me.” 

163 


GRANNIE 


I said I was so sorry. “Are you?” she asked, 
looking to see if I really was. “You don’t look 
very sad,” she said. “Shall we play shops? — say 
yes.” 

Of course I said it; what else was I there for? 

Then Bounce began to busy herself. Gan Gan 
must sit in the miggle of the sofa. In obedience 
to her commands I sat in the middle of the sofa. 
She became busier every moment. All the time 
she worked she talked in an undertone, talked 
with emphasis, arguing with an imaginary person 
who disagreed with her, on purpose. We can all 
imagine the kind of person who does that. 

I was so interested in Bounce’s conversation 
that before I realised it I had become the shop 
and my lap the dumping-ground for all Bounce’s 
goods. Now I have more lap than some grand- 
mothers and am proud of the fact; but no lap 
could harbour all Bounce would require of it. The 
treasures were piled quickly and, for some time 
deftly, with safety. The burden became, at last, 
so great that I dared not move. Still they came. 
I implored Bounce to desist. Bounce was obdur- 
ate. The contents of the writing-table were still 
to come. 

All Anna’s objets d’art (as Anne calls them) 
164 


GRANNIE 


were on my lap. The last thing Bounce fetched 
from the table was an ink-pot in the shape of a 
bell. Suddenly Bounce thought she would ring 
that bell. I saw the dawn of inspiration on her 
face. 

“The shop’s ready,” she said. 

“Don’t ring that bell, darling,” I implored. 

“I must, to tell the peoples,” she said. 

She rang it. The next moment she stood open- 
mouthed, gazing at the black magic she had 
wrought. With a wave of her arm she had 
changed a bell into an ink-pot. 

“Clever Bounce, oh clever Bounce!” she said 
softly. She clapped her inky hands together and 
said something about a crunjenor. Had I seen? 
Assuredly I had seen. I couldn’t get up ; I couldn’t 
get a purchase for my feet on the bare parquet 
floor. I was helpless. 

“Ring the real bell, darling,” I implored. 

“Bounce can’t,” she said; “only uvver bells, oh 
clever Bounce!” 

“Try, darling, and then Henry will come and 
buy like a real shop.” 

She rose to the bait and rang the bell. Every- 
thing she touched bore the ink-marks of her 
fingers. 


165 


GRANNIE 


Then up the stairs came the welcome sound of 
footsteps and in came Carter. Crestfallen, 
Bounce stood under the sorrowful interrogation 
of his gaze. “Miss Bounce !” he said. And inky 
Miss Bounce said nothing. She looked down, 
then, gradually gaining courage, she raised her 
eyes and, with the pained solemnity of a convicted 
puppy, pleaded forgiveness. 

“Have you nothing to say, Miss Bounce ?” he 
asked. 

“Fank you velly, velly much for the chocolate 
pudding dear, dear Tarter,” she lisped, and Carter 
without a word lifted one by one the treasures 
from my lap and promised to remove all the ink- 
marks by the time Mrs. Richard returned. 

I rose, but not in the estimation of my grand- 
child. I felt I had failed her. 

“Bounce is going upstairs,” she announced, 
deeply hurt. And she went. 

“If Mrs. Richard would give me the entire con- 
trol of the children this sort of thing would never 
happen,” said Carter. 

“You are devoted to children, Carter?” I said. 

“I understand them, ma’am, if you will forgive 
me for saying so.” 

I forgave him, remembering at the same time 
166 


GRANNIE 


the chocolate-pudding nature of his understand- 
ing, and followed Bounce upstairs. 

“You don’t amuse me,” she said when I ap- 
peared at the nursery door, and she climbed up on 
the window seat and, looking out, she told the 
sparrows all about her nasty, hollid grannie. 

“Vey haven’t got a grannie, not one single one,” 
she said, turning to me at last, her eyebrows 
drawn into a straight line of dissension. “Vey 
are glad,” she added, deeply sighing. 

I said nothing. 

“Not one tiniest, teeniest one and vey never 
ask God to give them one — never not once. Their 
Nannie says they better because grannies do give 
their little grandchildren fings sometimes, but vey 
won’t, because vey are giad vey haven’t got one.” 

I said nothing. 

“Vey are glad,” she repeated, and she sighed 
again very noisily. 

Still I said nothing, and for the space of a few 
seconds there was silence while Bounce looked at 
me. Then she turned to the window and I heard 
her whispering ; then back again to me. 

“I’ve just asked anuvver little sparrow, a vewy, 
vewy little one, and he says he has and she is 

167 


GRANNIE 


vewy, vewy nice, a vewy kind grannie — only she’s 
wather old.” 

“Does she give him chocolate pudding?” I 
asked, seeing an opening and my heart wobbling. 

“Nope, his buckler gives him chocolate pudding 
when he’s naughty; he has lots and once he was 
sick.” This on chocolate pudding was worth 
being. 

“What does his grannie do?” 

“She tells him stories — nice stories.” 

She had slipped down from the window seat 
and was standing before me with such a look on 
her face — irresistible! I held out my arms and 
she threw herself into them with the whole- 
hearted forgiveness only a child can bestow on a 
stupid, obstinate, prejudiced grown-up. 

“What is it to be about, Bounce?” I asked. 

“About two, three, six, five little dogs — two 
white, seven black ones and one black spotted 
one, because he was vewy naughty and rang the 
bell.” 

“About five little dogs, two white, six black, 
and one white one spotted with black?” I said. 

“Because he rang the fun-ny bell,” she said, 
screwing up her nose and throwing herself back- 
wards in an ecstasy, a most dangerous proceeding. 

168 


GRANNIE 


So I began the story. I had not got far when 
Bounce told me she had a bruise. She showed it 
to me. I commiserated with her, whereupon she 
told me sharply to go on. I went on, and as soon 
as I had started she suggested a change from little 
dogs to little boys. Then she professed a prefer- 
ence for little girls. Directly after, for rabbits. 
Then she said it must be about everything in the 
whole world — boys and girls and rabbits and 
kitchen tables and cucumber and chocolate and 
Nannies and sponge cakes and rollers, only not 
about grannies. — “Go on — oh, do go on.” 

I said I couldn't tell a story about everything 
in the world because there wouldn't be time. 

“Vould it be tea time?” she asked hopefully, 
and I said yes. 

“Then it must have to be about the silly old 
bears, I suppose,” she said resignedly, “or else 
about Red Riding Hood — mustn't it have to be?” 
And I said I was afraid so. 

“Must stories always be about those?” she 
asked wistfully. 

“Nearly always,” I answered. 

“Can't grown-ups tell uvver ones?” 

I was going to say some grown-ups could when 

169 


GRANNIE 


Nannie came into the room with three balloons 
bobbing at the ends of their strings. 

“Me?” cried Bounce jumping down and clam- 
ouring round Nannie. 

“One moment, darling. Have you said thank 
you to Grannie ?” 

“Yeth, yeth, haven't I?" 

I tried to look grave. 

“Has she, ma’am?" asked Nannie, holding the 
balloons out of Bounce’s reach. (She hadn’t to 
hold them very high to be that.) 

“She hasn’t kissed me/’ I said, evading a direct 
answer. 

“Kiss your grannie,’’ said Nannie. 

“I’m vewy busy,’’ said Bounce. 

“Bounce,’’ said Nannie, looking very grieved. 
“Kiss your grannie, darling.’’ 

Reluctantly, with her eye on the balloons, 
Bounce tendered her cheek. “No, properly, 
darling,’’ said Nannie. 

“It was,’’ said Bounce. 

“No, darling.’’ 

“Yeth, darlin’,” said Bounce as emphatically, 
holding out eager hands. “The blue one, Nannie, 
I said, bags I, for the blue one last time and it 
burst — oh, pelease!’’ 

i7o ■ 


GRANNIE 


“Kiss your grannie.” 

“Please, Nannie,” I said, “she has.” 

“Not properly, ma’am.” 

“Oh, bower,” said Bounce, throwing her arms 
round my neck and presenting the back of her 
head to be kissed. “There,” she sighed. “Now 
ve blue vun” — this to Nannie. 

Nannie gave her the blue one and Bounce 
turned a radiant face to me. “Don’t you lo-uve 
balloons?” she gasped. 

But grannie was not to be so quickly appeased ; 
not that she resented anything the child had 
done ; but she had been made to appear something 
of less than a social success in the eyes of Nannie, 
and punishment had been meted out in the form 
of a kiss. 

“You must amuse yourself now, Gan Gan,” said 
Bounce, “because I’m busy.” 

“You mustn’t say that, darling,” whispered 
Nannie, and she whispered something else besides. 

As I went downstairs Bounce looked through 
the banisters above me. 

“You were wather funny, Gan Gan,” she said. 
Then I heard her say in a very loud and jubilant 
voice, “I said it, Nannie, weally I did, and she 
didn’t listen.” 


171 


GRANNIE 


“Yes I did, Bounce,” I called. 

“Nannie, she thays she did,” came Bounce’s 
voice from the end of the passage. 

Then all was quiet. Bounce had gone into the 
nursery and there would be peace until the burst- 
ing of the blue balloon. After that ! 

I went on my way feeling curiously lonely and 
not a little ashamed. It seemed to me that two 
very big people had been bullying one very small 
child. Or had one small child been bullying one 
old woman? I would rather have it so. 

“Was Bounce good?” asked Anna when she 
came in. 

I said Bounce had been very patient and very 
interesting. Anna said she wished she could find 
troublesome children that. She didn’t understand 
them and it was no use pretending she did. “And 
I do try so hard,” she added pathetically. 

“Tell me about Guy,” I said. “How did he go 
off to school? Quite happily?” 

Anna said he took it all perfectly naturally, 
even the first time. It appeared that Carter had 
told him all about it then. “He is a most extraor- 
dinary man,” said Anna. “He came to me a 
few days before Guy went and said, T beg your 
pardon, ma’am, but before Master Guy goes to 
172 


GRANNIE 

school, wouldn’t it be as well to tell him what his 
father is?’ 

“I asked Carter what he meant and he said, ‘I 
beg your pardon, ma’am, but the first question 
one young gentleman asks another when they get 
to school is, “ What’s your father?” ’ So at 
luncheon I took the opportunity of asking Guy if 
he knew what his father was. ‘ Rather / he said, 
browsing away, ‘I know all right what dad is.’ 

“Well, what? 

“ ‘Dad?’ he paused; ‘oh, he’s a bachelor.’ ” 

Anna was surprised I could enjoy that; she 
thought it so stupid, and so very awkward too, 
with the men servants in the room. 

“I suppose, grannie,” said Anna, “you took your 
own children seriously?” 

How seriously Anna took hers I discovered on 
a Sunday morning when it was too wet for them 
to go to church. She gathered them around her 
for a Bible lesson. There was a frown of per- 
plexity on her face. It was reflected on Freddy’s. 
He knew he wasn’t going to understand. He 
started critical of his mother’s teaching, but meant 
to be very, very good and attentive. 

Anna began by showing them pictures in a 

173 


GRANNIE 


large book. She stood it, end up, on her lap, 
facing the children, so that all could see. 

It appeared that no one could see. “More this 
way, mum,” they said with kindly encourage- 
ment; “that’s better. Now what is it supposed 
to be?” 

» 

“Oh, I know,” said Freddy. “Of course, Bounce, 
you see. It’s Abram and Isaac. . . . But, mum, 
why did Abram — I mean, why did God want 
Abram to cook Isaac?” 

“Don’t be naughty, Freddy,” said Anna, turn- 
ing hurriedly to a picture of Daniel in the den 
of lions. 

Now I knew Freddy had no intention of being 
naughty. 

Bounce sighed heavily as she looked at the 
picture. “I do love it,” she said, almost dribbling 
with joy, “the darlin’ kind lions. Don’t you, 
Freddy?” 

But Freddy was suffering in silence under a 
strong sense of injustice. I was glad to see he 
had the strength to do it. 

“Now, Bounce,” asked her mother, “why did 
they go early in the morning to the den of lions?” 
174 


GRANNIE 


“To see if Daniel had eaten ve poor lions,” said 
Bounce sorrowfully. 

I stole out of the room. I hadn’t the nerve to 
stay. I suppose my children used to ask ques- 
tions as difficult to answer; but I was younger 
then and could better face the ordeal. 

“All right, grannie,” said Freddy cheerfully, 
“you needn’t go. Mum will soon tell us to get 
down and run away; she always does when we 
haven’t half done.” 


175 


XV 


When Freddy suggested I should take him 
“somewhere” I remembered the occasion on which 
I had taken him and Bounce to a children’s 
play. What happened was something to this 
effect. 

The curtain went up. The scene was a wood; 
in the foreground a child was lying asleep. 

“Is he really dead?” asked Freddy in a hoarse 
whisper. 

“Oh, no, darling, not dead, only asleep.” 

“Why is he?” 

“Wait and see.” 

“What? See what?” 

“Are vey real birds in the tree?” asked Bounce. 

“They haven’t all got wings,” said Freddy. 

“Some of them have, darling,” I said. 

“Mustn’t all birds have?” asked Freddy. 

“Vat have vey?” asked Bounce. 

“All of them haven’t,” chipped in Freddy. 

“No, darling,” I said. 

“Have they?” 

176 


GRANNIE 


“No, darling.” 

“Was ‘No, darling’ to me or to Bounce?” asked 
Freddy, leaning across me. 

“To both, darling,” I said. 

“Is he weally dead, poor little boy?” said 
Bounce. 

“Grannie said he wasn't, Bounce,” said Freddy 
severely. 

“You didn’t, did you, Gan Gan?” said Bounce, 
leaning heavily from the other side, and she and 
Freddy met across me. 

“No, darling,” I assured her, “he isn’t dead.” 

“Why isn’t he?” — this both together. 

“Well, darlings . . .” 

“Well what?” 

This kind of thing went on until the curtain 
fell, when a free fight ensued between Freddy 
and Bounce. With difficulty I separated them. 
Then Bounce said she must put on her hat. “I 
look lovely in my hat, don’t I?” she asked in her 
far-carrying voice. “Don’t I, Gan Gan?” 

I said she did. 

“May I look at the people?” she said, seizing 
my glasses ; and, looking at the audience immedi- 
ately around her, she made remarks about them, 
to the amusement of some, who laughed, but 

177 


GRANNIE 


another from behind me not amused said “Hush!” 
and Bounce frowned at her. To frown better she 
knelt on the seat of her stall and continued to 
frown until the curtain went up. The stage was 
in darkness. 

“What is it supposed to be?” hoarsely whis- 
pered Freddy. 

“It’s dark, darling, so we can’t see.” 

“Why is it? — when it’s light shall we see?” 

“Will it always be dark like vis?” whispered 
Bounce; “won’t vere even be a night-light? Has 
veir Nannie gone to Brixton?” 

“Ah-h!” a sigh from Freddy, “it’s light now , 
Bounce” — this kindly. 

“I can see vithout you tellin’ me,” she said 
snappishly. 

And so on. 

I took them to the immortal Peter Pan, and 
when Hook said “Nobody loves me,” Bounce rose 
in her seat and said in her high-pitched voice, 
vibrant with feeling, “7 will love you.” It was a 
delicious impulse on her part and I am told set a 
fashion, but it makes me anxious for her future 
and Anna must look well to the young men she 
asks to the house. 

When Peter Pan is cast away and apparently 

178 


GRANNIE 


lost for ever Bounce wept bitterly, but consented 
to be comforted by a little boy who leant over 
from behind her and said, “He doesn’t die — 
truthfully he doesn’t.” 

“Promise?” sobbed Bounce. 

“Faithfully I promise, at least he doesn’t gen- 
erally.” 

“No, he never does, Tommy,” said an elder 
sister, “so you can promise.” 

“I say” — this to Bounce — “it’s all right, he 
never does. Mary says so.” 

The mother of that little boy too must look to 
his future. He showed a heart over tender to a 
woman in distress, and that the woman was only 
four and a bit and himself six and another bit 
didn’t make it any the safer. 

Another danger signal was hoisted by Freddy 
when he threw his arms round the wax figure of 
a baby in the children’s outfitting department at 
Harrod’s. As I coaxed Freddy away, a pretty 
woman passing said, “How anxious that child’s 
mother should be.” 

His grandmother felt the anxiety ; but she knew 
that with age would probably come, if not dis- 
crimination, at least discretion. 

Well, those were winter things, but they were 

179 


GRANNIE 


fresh in my memory when Freddy suggested I 
should take them somewhere during that summer 
visit of mine. So fresh were they that Bounce 
said “Say yes” twice before I finally committed 
myself to a picnic so soon as I got home. The 
suggestion was received with acclamations on all 
sides. 

“A nicpic,” said Bounce under her breath. 

“Picnic, darlin’,” said Freddy. 

“Nicpic,” said Bounce just as firmly; “Gan Gan 
said so, didunt you?” turning to me. 

“Picnic, darling.” 

“There,” said Bounce triumphantly; “nicpic; 
she said so.” 

She walked away murmuring, “ nicpic — nicpic — 
NICPIC .” She went out of the room, put her 
head round the door and said, “Nicpic.” Freddy 
didn’t know it, but at that moment he had it in 
his heart to kill poor Bounce ; poor Bounce didn’t 
know it either. 

“She’s only a baby, Freddy,” I pleaded. 

“She’s four and a half, struck said Freddy 
furiously; “if she can’t be decent now when ever 
will she be? Never, I should think! Nannie 
says I must pray for her to be made good; but 
what’s the use? God couldn’t do it if He tried. 

180 


GRANNIE 


He can’t even make a fine day when we go to the 
Zoo. She trod on my chocolate cream yesterday 
on purpose — and then she said I might eat it off 
her shoe. ... I didn't, at first." 

“Did you afterwards, Freddy?" I asked in 
horror. 

“Well, I did because she would have if I hadn’t, 
so I did to pay her out. ... It tasted all right, 
only it is hard to have your chocolate creams 
trodden on." I quite agreed with him. It seemed 
to me the heavy foot of fate. 

While I was staying with Dick and Anna, an 
aunt of Anna’s died. She had been particularly 
fond of Freddy and had showered presents upon 
him. His father broke to him the news of her 
death ; Freddy listened, looking very solemn and, 
I thought, somewhat awed. I was touched to 
see how much feeling the child showed. Then 
he said rather cheerfully, but not too hopefully, 
“No chance of her rising again, I suppose?" 


181 


XVI 


When in London I determined to go to the War 
Office and discover for myself what manner of 
man was Ian Forres. It was not a subject I could 
discuss with Dick, because he could see no reason 
why Patricia should want to marry any man. 
Anna could see none why she should want to 
marry any but a rich one, and as I was determined 
she should marry the man she loved — if he were 
a good man — I was going to find out all about 
him. When I discovered that the man in high 
office to whom I must apply had been known 
to me years before, my grandmotherly heart re- 
joiced. That was a difficulty surmounted at once. 
I had been assured I should only see a sub- 
ordinate and I was determined no subordinate 
would do for me. Ready with a secret code to be 
used if necessary, I went and demanded to see 
the Chief. 

I was politely requested to put my business 
in writing. I as politely declined to put my busi- 
ness in writing. Still more politely was I urged 
182 


GRANNIE 


to do so. As politely I declined. Finally under 
compulsion I wrote “l.b.w. b. dog boy, 99,” and 
handed it to my inquisitor. Whether he read 
it or not I cannot tell. All I know is that a 
few minutes later I stood face, to face with a 
grey-haired man whom I had known when he 
had no grey hairs. He had played cricket at 
Winthorpe. At Winthorpe he had won his match 
and had lost something else. At Winthorpe he 
had broken his collar bone and, he had thought, 
his heart. In a sunny bay window at Winthorpe 
I had had something to do with the mending of 
both his collar bone and his heart. That had 
been many years ago, but it accounted for the 
smile with which he welcomed me. 

“I thought it must be you,” he said, pushing 
aside a pile of papers and rising to meet me. 

“Then you remembered me, Sir Wil ” 

“No, please, not that!” 

“Billy? Well, Billy.” 

“Billy, please. What can I do for you? Let 
me see — Ralph, was it?” 

“Yes; Ralph, Dick, Hugh, Cynthia, Bettine 
and Claudia.” 

“Yes, yes,” he said smiling, “I remember some 

183 


GRANNIE 


of them.” He settled himself in his chair. “Is it 
Hugh?” 

I said it was none of my sons, but a son's 
daughter. 

“Your granddaughter? What can I do for her? 
1 have a daughter.” He smiled as leaning for- 
ward he drew with his pen, I presumed, a daugh- 
ter on the blotting-paper. “She is eight,” he con- 
fided. 

I said my granddaughter was eighteen. “A 
dangerous age,” he said smiling, giving his daugh- 
ter surprisingly long eyelashes. 

“A very dangerous age and a very dangerous 
person,” I admitted. 

“That I can believe. Until I had a daughter 
of my own, I didn't realise at what an early age 
they begin to be dangerous. It is curious how 
they undermine one's sense of right and wrong, 
how much more convincing their illogical argu- 
ments are than ours. Did your granddaughter's 
mother run very well?” and he added long legs, 
long black legs, to his picture on the blotting- 
paper. 

“No, that was Cynthia.” 

“I remember her.” 

“This is Dick's girl.” 

184 


GRANNIE 


“Dick — let me see. Dick? Was it Dick whose 
trousers ?” 

“Yes, that was Dick. Well, it's his girl and 
it’s no use making a secret of it.” 

“I had none from you at Winthorpe, had I?” 
he asked. 

“I should like to believe that. Well, a young 
man loves her, and very naturally I want to 
know what manner of a young man he is. You 
are the person to know, and I believe the person 
who will tell me what you know.” 

“Ah!” 

“Could you tell me?” 

“It is of course my business to judge of men as 
soldiers — not lovers.” 

“But when your daughter loves a soldier, shall 
you judge of him as a soldier only or as a man?” 

“He must be a good man, but he mustn’t be 
a bad soldier. Who is the young man?” 

I told him. He frowned. 

“A good soldier undoubtedly,” he said. “As a 
soldier I can vouch for him, as a young man of 
grit and determination I can vouch for him. One 
day he waited eight hours to see me. He was 
told when he called that I was out. He asked 
when I should be in and was told in time to dress 

185 


GRANNIE 


for dinner. He said he would wait. It was 
then eleven o’clock in the morning. I came in 
at seven in the evening and found him. He had 
waited all day and apparently hadn’t smoked. 
He got what he wanted, of course. It was an 
African expedition. I asked him if he could start 
the next day and he said yes, he could, and he 
did. He’s that sort of young man.” 

“Then if he wants my Patricia he’ll have 
her.” 

“I should say undoubtedly. The wicked thing 
is — forgive the heresy, dear Mrs. Legraye — the 
wretched thing is, that your Patricia should get 
so valuable a soldier. A master of fox hounds 
would have done just as well for her. He has 
no business to marry — none.” 

“You married,” I ventured. 

“I met my wife,” he said simply, as if that were 
explanation enough. “What do you want to know 
about Ian Forres?” 

I said in my most simple and grandmotherly 
manner that I wanted to know if he was good 
enough to marry my Patricia. 

“My dear Mrs. Legraye, I can tell you that 
without asking any one — of course he’s not. Is 
any man good enough to marry our daughters? 

186 


GRANNIE 


or our granddaughters? I wonder the thought 
of that hasn't made a better man of every man 
long ago. Wait!” 

He took up the receiver of the telephone and 
said, “Is that you, Campbell?” Naturally I did 
not hear the answer. Then, “D’you know Ian 
Forres personally?” 

I guessed the answer to be Yes. 

“Well?” 

The answer must have been, Very well. 

“Is he — ” the General paused, smiled, and 
chose the word — “straight?” 

There was evidently no hesitation in the answer 
and the General laughed. “Would you let him 
marry your granddaughter?” he asked. Then 
quickly, “All?” then quickly again, “Love him?” 
I could not guess what had come between the 
two questions. 

“Thanks,” and the General replaced the re- 
ceiver. Then, turning to me, he said, “Captain 
Campbell says he would be only too thankful if 
Forres married all his granddaughters, if he had 
any. Judging by the warmth of his expressions 
I should say Forres is as good a friend as he is a 
soldier. But I must warn you — Campbell says all 
women love him — Forres.” 


187 


GRANNIE 


“That perhaps is not his fault,” I suggested. 

“Nor perhaps his particular virtue,” said Sir 
William. “It may be an uncomfortable accident 
of fortune,” he added. 

“I should like to meet your wife, Sir — Billy,” 
I said. Then I knew — a look — and it flashed 
upon me! I held out my hand. “Forgive me. 
You must forgive the stupidity of an old woman 
who lives buried in the country, and who looks 
up her generals in the Army List. An official 
list has no heart.” 

He took my hand. “You can do this for me. 
Ask my little girl to meet your granddaughter. 
She will need a woman friend, principally because 
I am afraid she will never want to make one. 
She is naturally so much with men that she under- 
stands them better than women. As a protest 
against governesses she calls hers Bobbie. A 
young married woman — so long as she is the right 
sort — is what she will need by and by, and Mrs. 
Ian Forres should be the very person.” 

I felt dismissed. He came to the door with 
me. “Why did you remember that the dog boy 
bowled me?” he asked, smiling. 

“Because it was, I imagine, the happiest day 
of his life.” 

188 


GRANNIE 


“Was it? / imagine my servant had some- 
thing to say to the spoiling of it. He had put 
his money on my century. They were jolly 
days.” 

As I went out of the door a young man, com- 
ing in, ran up against me and would have knocked 
me down if he hadn’t as promptly picked me 
up. It was all so quickly done that I had not 
time to be frightened, although I had plenty 
of time to discover that the young man was very 
charming to look at and had the most delightful 
way of accusing himself of all the clumsy crimes 
in the world and an extraordinary eloquence in 
craving forgiveness of them. Of course I for- 
gave him. What after all had he done that he 
hadn’t at once rectified, and with such good 
grace? 

He insisted on seeing me into a taxi and 
on driving with me. “Where shall I say?” he 
asked. 

And I said Harrod’s, because I wanted to go 
there on my way back to Cadogan Square, and it 
was the only place I could think of at the moment, 

“You are very brown,” I ventured, looking at 
my companion. It was perhaps an odd way to 

189 


GRANNIE 


talk to a stranger, but it was the only thing I 
had to say. 

He explained he had just come back from 
abroad. He had been going — when he had nearly 
knocked me down — to report himself at the War 
Office. 

I said I thought he ought to tell me his name 
and he told me it was Forres — just as I expected 
he would. 

“Ian?” I suggested. 

“Yes, why?” 

“Only because I am Patricia's grandmother.” 

Whereupon what did this surprising young man 
do but kiss me, and it seemed perfectly right and 
natural that he should, and from that moment we 
were entirely at ease with one another, and I felt 
I knew him as well as he professed to know me. 
It was delightful. 

“Grannie for granted, of course,” he said. “I 
knew it must be. I know all about you — what 
you have been to Patricia all her dear little life. 
Now I too am going to take you for granted — 
your love — your interest — your encouragement — 
and I am going especially to take for granted that 
you will do what you can for me during what 
promises to be a very difficult time. I think 
190 


GRANNIE 


you know Patricia cares for me. How much I 
care for her is not possible to put into words, so 
I shall not try. There are more things on earth 
than grandmothers to be taken for granted. But 
the difficulty is this: although I never had any 
prospect of being a rich man, I had every reason 
to suppose I should never be a very poor one. I 
must own my father has hinted at money diffi- 
culties for some time, and for that very reason I 
had not definitely asked Patricia to marry me, 
although it was, I think, perfectly understood 
between us. Then again, I knew we had a very 
worldly mother to overcome. Mrs. Legraye is 
that?” 

I nodded. 

“Well, not long ago a thunderbolt was hurled 
into my camp, literally into my camp. I got a 
letter from my father saying my allowance must 
stop from the date of his writing, that his affairs 
had panned out much worse than he had ex- 
pected. You can imagine what I felt. The first 
thing I did was to write an involved, ambigu- 
ous sort of a letter to Patricia, hinting ” 

“Yes,” I laid my hand on his knee, “I know.” 

The smell of new-mown hay came back to 
me, and I heard Patricia reading out to me just 

191 


GRANNIE 


those ambiguous passages hinting at horrible pos- 
sibilities. 

“Well,” he continued, “I got leave and fol- 
lowed my wretched letter as quickly as I could. 
To-morrow I am going north to get to the bottom 
of this bad business. If it is as bad as my father 
makes out, I must leave the Service and make 
money somehow, and I want you to keep Patricia 
for me — if you think it fair — because I’m most 
des — ridiculously fond of her.” 

“Patricia will need no guardian of her faith,” 
I said; “the child is in just as — ridiculous — a 
state herself. Does she know you are in Eng- 
land?” 

“No; I thought it best to say nothing until 
I knew how much I may say. I have arranged 
with a friend to telegraph from Southampton 
saying I am arriving there, when I have been 
north. It’s a little complicated; but it will pre- 
pare her.” 

I asked him if it was known at the War Office 
that he was returning, and when he said Yes, I 
realised how loyal men are to one another — even 
generals to their very much juniors. 

“Where are we?” I asked. 

He looked out of the window and said it looked 
192 


GRANNIE 


very like dear old Putney Hill. “I told the man 
just to drive on,” he explained. 

It was dear old Putney Hill, and I had never 
thought to love it so well. 

“But,” I said, “I must ask you to tell him to 
drive back to Cadogan Square,” which he did, 
and, arrived at Cadogan Square, the first thing I 
saw was Patricia standing on the doorstep. She 
looked so lovely, so delicious and so lonely, and 
wore a hat so becoming, that I said to Ian, “Stay 
where you are,” to Patricia, “Jump in, darling,” 
and to the taxi-man, “Drive on.” 

It was done. After all it was a simple enough 
thing to do — and the only thing a grandmother 
could do. And I stood on the doorstep feeling 
the wickedest and the happiest old woman in 
London. 

When Carter opened the door I had not the 
courage to look at him, and I felt so shaky that 
he took my arm and helped me over the doormat. 
“We can't always remain young, Carter,” I said 
in extenuation. 

“No, ma'am, and those that are should make 
the most of it,” and I thought of my happy lovers 
speeding up dear old Putney Hill. 


193 


GRANNIE 


At the bottom of the staircase I was met by 
Freddy. 

“I've composed a new tune to ‘Around the 
throne of God in Heaven/ ” he said. “You can 
try to play it — if you like.” 

“Thank you, darling,” I said. 

“It's lunch time. D'you know if Patsy's in?” 

I thought not. 

“And it’s her favourite pudding,” he said sadly. 

“Poor, darlin' Patsy,” echoed Bounce, “it's her 
fav'rite pood — ” she jumped the bottom step — 
“din. Did you see me?” 

At the end of luncheon Anna awoke to the fact 
that Patricia's place was empty. “Carter, where 
is Miss Patricia?” she asked. 

“Lunching with Mrs. Vane, I believe, ma'am,” 
said Carter. 

“Is she lunching with Bettine?” Anna asked, 
turning to me. 

I said I expected Carter knew, and I wondered 
how much. 

“Go and ring up Mrs. Vane, Carter, and ask if 
Miss Patricia is there.” 

He went, and returned to say Miss Patricia was 
lunching with Mrs. Vane and Mrs. Vane would 
see Miss Patricia safely home. 

194 


GRANNIE 


I looked at Carter. His face was without ex- 
pression. In answer to my look he handed me 
toast. 

When Bettine brought Patricia safely back the 
door opened to admit a radiance that filled the 
house. It seemed unsafe to let it shine in Anna's 
drawing-room, where the blinds are always half 
drawn, and I expected to see Anna blink. So 
much so that I took Patricia to my room (I had 
other reasons), and she threw her arms round my 
neck (that was one of the reasons) and we laughed 
a little and we cried a little; then she sat down 
so that I might look at her. I looked, and when 
I saw her eyes, like stars shining, I beheld as it 
were a new earth and the promise of a new heaven, 
and I was ready to fight for that look in the 
child's eyes. Then she told me that she and he 
thought it was quite honest to keep "it" from her 
father and mother until he had seen his father. 
“And as you know," she added. 

“There's your father, Patricia," I said, knowing 
how much he loved her. “He loves you so." 

“Yes, that's just it, he loves me dreadfully, but 
not as you do, grannie." 

“More wisely, perhaps." 

“Not exactly that, darling; but the great dif- 

195 


GRANNIE 


ference is that you were married to Grannie-Man 
while father has been married to mother. It 
makes all, all the difference.” 

And of course it did. There was no use deny- 
ing it. 

So it was arranged; but why Dick and Anna 
did not guess I cannot imagine. Unless it is 
that God walks in the garden and few of us see 
Him; He plays in the slums and few of us know 
it; He talks to us and we do not recognise His 
voice. To some of us it is the voice of a little 
child calling — and so it may be. 

When Anna was told she tried hard to pull 
down the blinds, to shut out the sun. But be- 
fore she was told I had other things to distract 
me. One was a letter from Jordan Rivers. That 
did not surprise me; he had the promise of my 
votes to thank me for. But as I read the letter 
I found therein no mention of votes. What I 
did find was a constant reference to grandmothers, 
to young mothers. These filled me with horror, 
and I had not read far before I realised what 
had happened. I had posted the outpouring of 
my soul. I felt particularly hot when I re- 
membered an unnecessarily intimate reference to 
a first-born. 

196 


GRANNIE 


“I do see,” he wrote, “what you mean about 
grandmothers, and of course children are bound 
to be a great anxiety to their parents, even the 
best of them. But does the young mother take 
herself so seriously as you did in your day? 
Judging by the newspapers and illustrated papers, 
I have formed rather a different opinion. But 
as I draw most of my information from such 
sources, it is probably not fair to judge. I am 
very interested in what you write of your old 
nurse. Is she not a rare type nowadays? Also 
what you say of your daughter-in-law is charm- 
ing. What photograph is it your daughter has? 
The one in flannels, I expect! Why did no one 
insist on my having my hair cut? I am starting 
immediately for home.” 

What would Claudia say? The thought 
troubled me. 


197 


XVII 


Have you ever been to buy a hat with a friend 
who thinks all shapes wicked that are even re- 
motely fashionable, all shapes unladylike, except 
those of the kind worn by herself and by her 
mother before her? 

There is one thing to remember in buying a 
hat, and that is that the big shape of one year 
becomes in course of time the toque of another, 
or the other way round. 

Miss Cherry wanted a new hat, and the need 
of it came upon her while I was in London and 
she confessed to a liking for my taste in hats — 
which I resented — and she wrote to know if I 
would go with her to help her to choose. It is 
not often the chance falls to one at my age, and 
I was perhaps a little flattered and determined 
to show Miss Cherry I had other ideas than boat- 
shaped ones — in hats. 

It was further arranged that Don’t should come 
up with Miss Cherry. They were to lunch with 
Bettine, at whose house I was to meet them. 

198 


GRANNIE 


Anna said, why didn't they lunch with her? But 
Anna wouldn't have made poor little Miss Cherry 
feel at home. She would have noticed every 
wrinkle in the back of her coat and would prob- 
ably have recommended her a very expensive 
tailor. But with Bettine Miss Cherry would feel 
the greatest social success. She would marvel at 
her own wit and wonder why she didn’t go out 
more when she was so very amusing! So to 
Bettine's I went, and there I found Don't and 
Miss Cherry already arrived. As a matter of 
fact Don't (after the manner of the Lullingtons) 
was on the staircase with something to say. 
“Darling Mrs. Legraye, I should die if I didn't 
see you first to break it to you." 

“Break what?" I asked in alarm. 

“Only something perfectly heavenly that hap- 
pened to the Cherubim in the train. You know 
she has been taken for many things in her day, 
don't you? A maiden aunt often, and once a 
clergyman's wife, and twice a mother. Well, this 
morning she was early in her corner seat when 
Mr. Bathos came to the carriage door, of the 
train I mean, and the dear blind thing couldn’t of 
course see, but he's so clever at recognising voices, 
and when Mrs. Soames said, ‘Good morning, Mr. 

199 


GRANNIE 


Bathos, are you going to town?’ he said, ‘Good 
morning, Mrs. Soames, I will come and sit be- 
side you. Wait one moment while I remove this 
bundle of rugs/ and he removed the darling little 
Cherubim !” 

Don’t hugged me violently to give vent to her 
joy and I begged her to be quiet. “She will hear 
you,” I whispered. 

“No, she won’t; she is telling Bettine all about 
it. Poor darling Bettine was getting pinker 
every minute when I left the room. We must 
rescue her.” 

Don’t opened the drawing-room door and on 
the sofa sat Bettine and Miss Cherry, Bettine 
looking at the limit of her endurance. Miss 
Cherry had just said, “Do I look like it?” and 
Bettine was saying in her most comforting voice, 
“To a blind man you might ” 

“Well, dear Miss Cherry,” I said, sitting beside 
her, “you have come to town to shop?” 

“Dear Mrs. Legraye, yes; but how much more 
than a day’s shopping has already befallen me!” 

She dropped her voice and hurriedly told me 
the whole story. “Wasn’t it terrible? Even Don’t 
was quite upset; quite hysterical! Then another 
thing befell me at Harrod’s — a strange woman 
200 


GRANNIE 


put her arms round my neck — from behind. It 
was a great shock when I turned and confronted 
a complete stranger.” 

Don’t, from the window, said, “She was such 
a nice-looking woman, Mrs. Legraye, it didn’t 
matter, did it? I wish she had done it to me.” 

“That, Louisa,” said Miss Cherry, “is not the 
point. What troubles me is this — what sort of a 
woman is she for whom I was mistaken? Is she 
a good Christian, God-fearing woman, quiet in 
her dress, or is she giddy and frivolous?” 

Don’t paused and thought a moment, then said 
that if the woman had not been all those things 
her back couldn’t have borne so striking a re- 
semblance to Miss Cherry’s, because, although it 
was possible that a smart back might not always 
have a pretty face to it, a really good, pure back 
always went with a good pure face. “It is curious, 
and no one knows why, but there are backs that 
make one think of church, good works, curates 
and bumpily rolled umbrellas. It’s strange, but 
it’s true.” 

Miss Cherry said she had a very neat back when 
she was young. 

“And a charming face, now that you are not 
so young,” I said, patting her hand. 


201 


GRANNIE 


In the afternoon we all went shopping. It was 
Miss Cherry’s ambition to shop in a big shop. 
She explained that she never had the courage to 
enter one alone. So to a big shop, in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of Sloane Street, we went. 
We discovered from vague hints softly breathed 
by Miss Cherry that it was haberdashery she 
wanted, “of an intimate nature,” she whispered. 

Now in small shops, if you ask for buttons, 
Bettine says the shopwalker calls “Haby for- 
ward,” and in time you get buttons. Not so in 
big shops. If you ask for buttons you are 
promptly given a chair. We were each given a 
chair and Don’t asked Miss Cherry what she 
wanted in particular. Miss Cherry, turning a pink 
little face towards us, whispered that it was a 
man. “That she wanted?” asked Don’t, puzzled. 

“It’s a man,” whispered Miss Cherry, indicat- 
ing with a nod the patient waiting figure stand- 
ing behind the counter. Bettine whispered that 
it was all right; they always were men in big 
shops. Miss Cherry whispered back that she 
wanted buttons. Then Bettine in her most en- 
couraging voice assured her she needn’t mind giv- 
ing utterance to the word button. Whereupon 
Miss Cherry in desperation, pulling Bettine to- 
202 


GRANNIE 


wards her, said in a whisper loud enough for us 
all to hear that it was linen buttons. 

By this time the excellent young man behind 
the counter had fetched a young woman, who 
produced buttons at once without flinching. Miss 
Cherry, shielding the cards from the public gaze 
with one cotton-gloved hand, chose the size she 
wanted. Don’t was delirious with delight, and 
Bettine and I agreed that until she could learn 
to enjoy herself less she ought not to go out. 

Miss Cherry supposed young women were kept 
for the purpose. 

“Of what?” asked Don’t. 

“For the purpose of selling those things of 
which men should know nothing.” 

Then came the choosing of the hat. Bettine 
whispered to me that she was afraid London 
couldn’t produce it, but Don’t, overhearing, said 
a small shop might. So to one of what Bettine 
calls her “haunts” we went. 

When we got inside the shop Miss Cherry said 
to me, “You say!” which took me straight back 
to the days of my childhood and to the childhood 
of my children. I demurred. “You!” said Miss 
Cherry, pushing Bettine forward. And Bettine 
told the young woman, who was only too anxious 

203 


GRANNIE 


to serve us, that it was a hat the lady wanted — 
a quiet hat. 

There seemed to be every kind and shape of 
straw hats piled on shelves and on the floor. 
Those on the floor made an edifice of extraordi- 
nary unstability, the summit of which Don’t 
touched and the whole thing collapsed. “It must 
be for wet Sundays,” said Don’t, busily rebuild- 
ing the pile and enjoying it. 

The young woman ran her eyes up and down 
Miss Cherry — that didn’t take long — and up 
again, when she fixed them on the hat she was 
wearing. “Similar to the one you are wearing, 
madam?” And Miss Cherry asked her if it were 
likely she should buy a new hat if the one she 
had would do? 

We tried trimmed hats without success. Bet- 
tine then suggested choosing a shape and having 
it trimmed. 

I took the opportunity to suggest to Miss 
Cherry that she had come to the shop rather with 
the idea of getting a hat similar to the one she 
was wearing, whereupon she explained that she 
had never seen herself in three glasses at the 
same time before, and consequently had never 
204 


GRANNIE 


known how odd she looked, so she had now 
changed her mind. 

The patient young woman brought a multitude 
of shapes, but one was too high, one too broad, 
one too large, one too narrow, another too worldly, 
another too smart, and so on through them all. 

I sat down and waited. On Miss Cherry’s tiny 
head were placed one after the other the shapes, 
until I wondered how any one could wear any- 
thing so absurd as a hat. Bettine suggested put- 
ting something on the hat to give an idea of what 
it would look like trimmed. 

The patient young woman murmured some- 
thing about a “mount,” and returned with a flat 
basket tray full of feathers. “Dead hens!” said 
Miss Cherry, “what have they done that I should 
glory in their indignity?” 

Ribbon was suggested. “A pompom?” ven- 
tured the young woman. 

“The pompoms and vanities of this wicked 
world,” murmured Don’t. Miss Cherry said if 
they were called that it was no use bringing 
them. 

“This is a pretty hat,” said Don’t gaily, seizing 
one that lay on the counter. “Really pretty, so 
nice and quiet, just like you Cherubim, darling.” 

205 


GRANNIE 


She held it up for our inspection, and as she did 
so, over her shoulder stretched a black hand — 
not a black-gloved hand, but the bare black hand 
of a black woman. “That’s mine, miss, thank 
you,” said its ebony owner. It was some minutes 
before Don’t recovered from this. Then it seemed 
time to settle on something, so a black boat- 
shaped hat was chosen. It was to be trimmed 
with a flat bow in front — no, at the side. When 
Don’t exclaimed that it was exactly like the one 
the Cherubim was wearing, Miss Cherry asked 
what other hat Don’t supposed she would wear? 
It was the only shape a Christian woman, with 
her shaped face, could wear. 

The bill came to nine and elevenpence-half- 
penny. “Enough too!” said Miss Cherry. “How- 
ever, it will last ; and perhaps it is not exorbitant 
for a covering from the storm and a shade from 
the burning sun, and it won’t set a bad example 
in the village, and that after all is the first 
thing to think of in choosing a hat. Nothing 
else matters!” 

As we left the shop Bettine said she was sorry 
we had given so much trouble. “No trouble, 
miss,” said the young woman, who added, “That’s 
what I’m paid for,” and she sighed. 

206 


GRANNIE 


But Don’t said we mustn’t worry about the 
girl, because she wore a gold ring with two hearts 
intertwined, and that meant a young man and 
Sunday to look forward to. 

Bettine has reduced shopping to a fine art — 
not in getting for herself the best, but of giving 
of herself the best. And it comes much to the 
same thing. When she buys anything the girl 
behind the counter becomes, for the moment, her 
friend and confidante. Their interests are identi- 
cal. Bettine does not buy seven-eighths of a 
yard of anything without explaining why she 
wants that absurd and ridiculous length, which 
leads to horrible mazes of calculations on the back 
of the poor girl’s bill book. Can a greater cruelty 
be conceived than that of never satisfying a per- 
fectly legitimate curiosity, which must go to the 
making of the true saleswoman, and without 
which she is of no account? 

When Bettine first married she gave Derek 
a set of pearl studs the size of very small bread 
crumbs. She saw them in a shop window and, 
with her eye on that window, she started to save 
the money to buy them. The money saved, she 
was outside the shop so early in the morning that 
the shutters weren’t down. So she waited. And 

207 


GRANNIE 


when a very small boy took them down she helped 
him to do it, then went into the shop and bought 
the very small studs. 

I imagine that so long as she lives she will 
never forget buying those pearl bread crumbs. 
That is nothing! I dare say every woman re- 
members the first present she gave her husband, 
saved out of the house-keeping money — certainly 
he does. But how many shopmen remember sell- 
ing that present? That is the art to which Bet- 
tine has brought shopping. The selling becomes 
to the seller as great a thrill as is the buying to 
the buyer, and as living a memory. And Bettine 
pays, mind you! 


208 


XVIII 


When he was very small Putts announced one 
day that he had a loose headache in his hands, 
by which he meant to say that his gloves were 
too large. Could he have expressed it better? 

When I had been in London some time, I found 
I had a tight headache in my feet and deep head- 
ache in my heart whenever I thought of my gar- 
den, so I said goodbye to Bettine, to Anna, to 
Dick, to Patricia, to Freddy and Bounce and 
Primula (of whom I have told nothing). And 
I wrote a line to Claudia to tell her to expect 
me, and home I went, with joy in my heart and 
an aching longing to see my garden, which got 
better directly I buried my nose in a pink rose 
and Speedwell buried my hand in his dear horny 
one. I knew then that one cannot live with grand- 
children alone. In future they must come to me. 

“Are you tired of grandchildren ?” asked 
Claudia kindly as we paced up and down the soft, 
delicious, grass path between the flower borders. 

“Not of them; but of London, very, very 
tired” 


209 


GRANNIE 


“But they did tire you a little?” she per- 
sisted. 

I admitted it, just a little. “They walked 
faster than I wanted to walk.” Claudia slowed 
down as I said that, and I pressed her arm within 
mine and walked a little faster just to show her 
that she had not outpaced me. “They talked a 
little too fast,” I added. “I am getting old, 
Claudia, that’s it,” and she answered that I was 
the youngest person in the world, which reminded 
me so vividly of Patricia and her sweet exaggera- 
tions that I felt guilty, knowing what I was hiding 
from Claudia. 

“Quite the youngest,” she repeated; “but you 
must go to bed early for all that.” And early to 
bed I went, quite content to be managed, indeed 
I had missed it. Besides there is no place so safe 
as bed for a widow when she dares not talk. I 
had two secrets to keep from Claudia when it is 
no easy thing to keep one. 

She sat at the end of my bed waiting for me 
to tell her everything. Is there anything more 
paralysing? 

“You’re thin, darling,” she said. “Have you 
been worried?” 

I said not in the least. 

210 


GRANNIE 


“Not by Bettine, of course, but Patricia? Is 
her love affair prospering?” 

I said she was very happy and that I was very 
sleepy. 

“Yes, darling, you are . . . but Patricia . . . 
from what I hear, he is . . . well I don’t know 
whether he is a flirt exactly, but . . . Are you 
asleep?” 

“Yes, darling,” I murmured. 

“Dear humbug,” said Claudia kissing me, and 
by the very tenderness of her kiss I knew she 
knew I had something to hide, and was pitying 
me for finding it so difficult to be strong. 

I lay awake a long time, then, committing 
Patricia’s secret into God’s safe keeping until 
morning, I fell asleep. 

“Now, darling,” said Claudia briskly next morn- 
ing at breakfast, “there is, of course, something 
you are not going to tell me. It is about Patricia, 
I know, and she is, I am sure, engaged ; but I am 
not going to worry you. You are perfectly right 
not to tell, if you have promised not to, only don’t 
be frightened of me. I won’t try to find out any- 
thing. You can ask me for the toast or for more 
coffee or anything else, with perfect safety. Then 

211 


GRANNIE 


you can escape into the garden and enjoy your- 
self; but try not to tell Speedwell.” 

I had not to keep my secret long, for within a 
week came a budget of letters from Cadogan 
Square. The one from Patricia I opened first. 

“Darling Darling, — They know and have 
borne it better than I expected. Daddy was too 
darling for words — in fact he couldn’t say any- 
thing. But he looks at me as if I were some 
strange and ridiculous little animal that he rather 
loves and wouldn’t frighten for worlds. He only 
wonders what it is going to do next, and he is a 
little afraid of it. Mummy can’t understand at 
all. She tried very hard to make daddy say No, 
but he couldn’t. Who could, when they see how 
happy I am? Darling ‘Grannie for Granted,’ I 
can take everything for granted now, for nothing 
so really wonderful can ever happen to me again. 
If this can be true, what can there be in the 
world too good to be true? Didn’t you love him 
directly you saw him? Most women do, and 
don’t you understand it — and forgive them? You 
dearest, youngest, most adorable and understand- 
ing of older mothers than mine. Love this child 
as much as she loves you, and to ask you to do 
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GRANNIE 


that is to ask a great deal. Ian loves you as 
much as I do — nearly. — Your loving, 

“Patricia.” 

Then I opened Anna’s. 

“Dearest Grannie, — So you knew all the time ! 
Was it quite fair? I can’t help feeling Patricia 
has thrown herself away. Not that he isn’t charm- 
ing ; but Patricia is so very attractive. She might 
surely have done better. She has no idea of 
economy and looks upon the whole thing as a 
delightful joke. I tell her it is not the spirit in 
which to approach matrimony. It is by no means 
all fun. She might have seen that for herself. 
I am sure I have done everything possible for 
Dick, and even you must know he is very diffi- 
cult at times. Over this engagement for instance, 
he is impossible! He hates it, yet won’t allow 
me to say a word against it. He is jealous of 
Ian, and yet, as a father, he has no right to be 
jealous. I believe he would be just the same if 
Ian were a rich man. It is too absurd. I dislike 
the engagement because in my love for the child 
I should have liked her to do better; but she 
is absolutely happy. He dislikes it because he 
doesn’t want her to marry at all. I am rather 

213 


GRANNIE 


upset about the whole thing. Ian says you were 
upset at first — were you? What changed your 
opinion? It can’t be for two years at least.” 

Two years! The idea of keeping two young 
things waiting two years. Anna was inhuman. 

I opened Dick’s letter. 

“Darling Mother, — Of course you have heard, 
in fact so far as I can gather you have known all 
along. Well, the child is deliriously happy and 
it’s absurd of Anna to think she can do anything. 
So there it is! Of course I am delighted the child 
is so happy; but Heaven knows why she couldn’t 
have waited. Surely she might have been happy 
at home a little longer! There is, of course, the 
money difficulty. How they will manage on what 
he has, and on what I can give Patricia, I don’t 
know. But Patricia has it all cut and dried and 
is deep in account books. She has a wonderful 
friend who has kept a record of all the dinners she 
has given her lucky husband all the years they 
have been married. Piles of little books! When 
Patricia isn’t looking at them, Anna counts up 
how many times on an average these people dine 
out in the year. Wonderful woman, isn’t she? 
Such extraordinary things interest her. Bounce 
214 


GRANNIE 


is frightfully important and is trying to take 
Patricia’s place. She gets frightfully in the way. 
She is so horribly near the ground. I never see 
her till she squeals ‘Mind, daddy.’ I don’t know 
why she should be so small for her size.” 

“Dear old Dick,” said Claudia as she read the 
letter, “I don’t suppose he realizes how selfish 
he is.” 

I said perhaps it was hardly that. 

“Darling, of course you must stand up for your 
children. But I am afraid the fact remains.” 

A few days later I got another letter from Anna, 
evidently written in great haste under consider- 
able excitement. 

“Dearest Grannie, — There has been a terrible 
upset. You remember Mr. James P. Carter? Of 
course you knew him! Well, he has come over 
to England to start big works in the north — an 
enormous concern. He met Ian the other night 
and apparently was enormously impressed by him 
— as every one is. Well, to make a long story 
short, he approached Ian with a view to taking 
him into the business. Ian told Dick, and Dick, 
of course, asked Mr. Carter to dinner. Well, he 
came. I liked him so much. He’s frightfully 

215 


GRANNIE 


rich — that, of course, is not why I liked him — 
and after dinner Patricia and I left the dining- 
room and Dick winked at me. I was pleased, 
because he so seldom does that kind of thing. 
I knew what they were going to discuss; but 
apparently Patricia did not. She sat with me in 
the drawing-room and studied her account book. 
At last the men came up. Dick came in first 
looking rather excited, I thought. Then Ian came 
in with Mr. Carter, and went straight up to 
Patricia, sat down and put his hand over her 
open book and looked at her, as he does look at 
her. 

“ ‘On what basis of income are you calculating, 
Patsy?' asked her father. And Patricia said, 
‘Nine hundred a year,' and Dick laughed. Then 
he said, ‘We have something to say to you,' and 
Patricia stood up. She looked so pretty standing 
there before those men. Dick began, ‘Mr. Car- 
ter has a proposition to make'; and he told Pa- 
tricia just what offer it was Mr. Carter had made 
Ian (he didn’t present the advantages as I should 
have done), and told her it might lead in the 
future to a partnership if they were mutually 
satisfied. 

“‘It's a big thing to decide all in a hurry/ 
216 


GRANNIE 


said Mr. Carter, which was nice and modest of 
him — I mean to suppose it possible that there 
could be any but one decision ! 

“Patricia looked from one to the other — first 
at her father, then at Mr. Carter, then at Ian, and, 
stepping up to him, she put her arm through his. 
‘Is it for me to say?’ she asked. 

“ ‘Entirely,’ he answered. 

“ ‘Then, please,’ she said, ‘let me marry the 
soldier I fell in love with. I want to be poor. It 
was a poor man I promised to marry ; please don’t 
spoil it all.’ 

“Now did you ever hear anything so mad? 
Yes, there was one thing madder. What did Ian 
do but throw his arms round Patricia’s neck and 
call her his blessed, baby angel. She had decided 
just as he had hoped she would. Now, grannie, 
you see what Patricia is — absolutely and perfectly 
hopeless! After she and Ian had behaved like 
two lunatics she turned to Mr. Carter and said, 
‘If we get into very great difficulties will you give 
us another chance when we are older — perhaps 
when I have been a poor soldier’s wife a long 
time?’ 

“And he said, ‘Why, yes.’ But of course he 
won’t. 


217 


GRANNIE 


“Did you ever hear anything so absurd in your 
life? Of course he is probably offended. Pa- 
tricia has thrown away the chance of her life, and 
all probably for nothing more than the romance 
of a military funeral. I have cried all night and 
haven’t slept a wink. Lady Pulteney boasts of 
her daughter’s marriage. It’s nothing to what 
Patricia’s might have been! There’s no know- 
ing what Ian might have done. Mr. Carter says 
he has impressed him more than any young man 
he has met in England.” 

What I wrote to Patricia is my secret and hers, 
and I suppose Ian’s. Not even to my book could 
I confide it, for fear Claudia should see it. She 
says I am unworldly, and I would not give her 
good grounds for saying so. 

Claudia, of course, was tremendously interested 
in Patricia’s engagement. But it seemed to me 
she was fretting. Benny wondered if she was 
becoming a suffragette. “It creeps in unawares, 
ma’am, and comes out where you least expect it,” 
she explained. 

Where Benny had least expected it, and where 
it had apparently crept in unawares, was through 
the chinks in the mind of Bowles, who it appeared 
218 


GRANNIE 


had leanings suffragette way ; leanings only ! Her 
mind, I found on examination, to be almost per- 
pendicularly balanced, but leaning just a little, 
and mostly it seemed on my account and on Miss 
Claudia’s, “who is such a good manager.” I told 
Bowles not to worry about us; and I asked her 
how far she herself was prepared to go. She 
said she should never forget herself. What exact 
limit that placed upon her actions I do not know. 
I read her an extract from a letter I had that 
morning received from India. It was written by 
a man whose wife is a strong suffragette. “Women 
here,” he wrote, “are allowed no souls and are 
classed on the same level as camels; so it will be 
some time before the suffragettes will make any 
true start in this country.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bowles, “the Indians do 
think a great deal of their camels, don’t they?” 

It seems to me that Bowles might have a vote. 
Her mind is surely that of a politician. I am not 
so sure about old Mrs. Spruce, whom I met in the 
village one day not long before a General Election. 
Knowing her to be a staunch Conservative, I felt 
quite safe in asking her if her husband was going 
to vote for the Unionist. To my surprise she 
answered, “No, ma’am, none of my family have 

219 


GRANNIE 


ever been in the Union, and please God none of 
them ever will be.” 

To put things right I said I thought he might 
be going to vote for Mr. Christian, the Unionist 
candidate. 

“Why, to be sure, ma’am. He visits at your 
house.” 

“He does,” I admitted; “but you mustn’t judge 
a man by that.” 

“Not by the company he keeps, ma’am? Why, 
when my daughters went into service I had one 
word for them all, ‘Look to the company a man 
keeps and you have the man,’ and they’ve all done 
well by me, by themselves and by the men they 
married. It’s troublous times, ma’am,” she went 
on (she loves a talk), “troublous times, wars and 
tumours of wars — it’s bound to come.” She shook 
her old head. 

“What, war? Do you think so, Mrs. Spruce? 
I hope not.” 

“What’s been before comes again. You re- 
member what they called the French Resolution; 
Oliver Cumberland was his name.” 

I hastily passed from politics to her husband’s 
health. That was even more disturbed. He had 
a “tempest” every night. It went to one hun- 
220 


GRANNIE 


dred and three, so the doctor said. “They are 
troublous times, Mrs. Spruce,” I agreed. 

“But you have your grandchildren, ma’am; 
they’re better than wars.” 

I said they were very much better and a great 
comfort to me in my old age. 

Don’t Lullington knows more about village poli- 
tics than any one, just as she knows more than 
any one about village politicians. She came across, 
also at election time, Jimmy Furze sweeping 
leaves in the Bruxton woods. Dear old Jimmy, 
he is the dearest, quaintest little thing in the 
world and in the way of a man I should say about 
the smallest. 

“Are you going to vote, Jimmy?” asked Don’t, 
placing her foot on his broom, the only known 
way, up till then, of stopping him sweeping. 

“Yes, miss, sure I be.” 

“Who for, Jimmy?” 

“Whoever the lady says, miss, I’ll do just what 
she tells me. I don’t know anything about it — 
but if she says.” 

“But,” said Don’t, “you mustn’t do what her 
ladyship tells you. You must have a mind of 
your own.” 


221 


GRANNIE 


“I never had one, miss; all my life I’ve done 
what I’m told — sweeping most of the time, miss.” 

“You only sweep in the autumn, Jimmy.” 

“So you’d think, miss — but I be always sweep- 
ing.” 

“No time for politics, then?” 

“No time, miss; when it’s not leaves it’s grass, 
when it’s not grass it’s leaves,” and Jimmy went 
on sweeping. It seems to me that Bowles has 
more time for politics than Jimmy. 

When Don’t said good-bye to Jimmy that 
morning, she told him if he called at The Warren 
he should have a rabbit pie to take home. She 
was bold enough to suggest that his wife might 
give him a kiss for it. That brought Jimmy’s 
broom to a standstill, as nothing else had ever 
done. “She bain’t kissed me these seventeen 
years,” he said ; “nor bain’t I she,” he added, and 
back to his sweeping. 

Whether the vote would soften the heart of 
Mrs. Jimmy I do not know. 

Jimmy can neither read nor write. What he 
knows he has learned from the most patient of all 
teachers— Nature. From the birds of the air 
and the flowers of the field he has learnt the 
kindliness of his ways, his gentle, unquestioning 
222 


GRANNIE 


obedience; from the animals he has tamed, his 
patience; from the animals he has not tamed, 
perhaps his cunning. There are reams written 
in the wrinkles in his face and volumes in the 
twinkle in his eye. 

But it was not about politics Claudia was fret- 
ting. 


223 


XIX 


I had still kept from Claudia the secret of the 
promised picnic. 

I felt the time had come when confession is 
the better part of discretion, for I would rather 
bear the brunt of a grown-up’s displeasure than 
commit the grievous sin of disappointing a child 
of a thing which has been “really and truly” 
promised. So I told her. 

“A picnic for children,” she said, “of course 
they will all be ill, and will all catch cold and will 
possibly most of them be drowned ; but, of course, 
do as you like — only don’t blame me.” 

So it was gaily arranged. Putts was to come 
from Winthorpe to do host. From London should 
come Bounce and Freddy, and children in the 
neighbourhood should be asked to meet them. 

I chose, as good fortune would have it, a per- 
fect summer day, and it proved to be the longest 
day in the whole year, although it was not the 
21st of June. The day began very early, much 
earlier than most of my days, which perhaps was 
why it seemed so long. With the dawn crept 
224 


GRANNIE 


into my room Putts, Bounce and Freddy. It 
might almost have been called a night attack. 
They wanted to know, naturally enough, if the 
picnic time had come? The picnic time had not 
come; but a night-begowned nurse came and took 
the children back to bed. But the day was there. 
The children had brought it and nothing could 
take it away again. I could not conjure back the 
night. So I lay awake and thought how absurdly 
nice the children had looked as they stood beside 
my bed, Freddy and Putts in ridiculous pyjamas, 
and Bounce in a night-gown just as ridiculous 
from the point of view of size. Then their eyes 
had been so wide open and their cheeks so pink 
and their lips so dewy. “New every morning is 
the child. ,, How truly the hymn says that . . . 
but does it say that? 

The picnic was to be a tea one. Incidentally 
every meal throughout the day was a picnic. At 
breakfast and luncheon there were no earwigs 
certainly, or insects of any kind; but the feeling 
of feverish excitement was there. 

“Is it time now?” asked Putts every minute 
during the morning. And when Putts was tired, 
Freddy did the asking, and in her turn Bounce, 
and out of her turn too. 


225 


GRANNIE 


At last, soon after luncheon, the first guest 
arrived — a little girl, a very demure little girl. 
Her nurse pushed her into the room, which she 
naturally resented with a shrug of disarranged 
muslins, and Putts advanced towards her. “IPs 
come,” he said, beaming with pleasure and good 
nature. 

“I’ve come,” said the little girl, smoothing her 
frock. 

“So’s it — I mean the picnic,” explained Putts. 

“Where is it?” she asked, looking round the 
room. 

“IPs going to be outside. This is Grannie 
Patts,” introducing me. 

I said I was glad to see the little girl, and the 
little girl said her father and mother were quite 
well, thank you, which made me feel very shy. 

“Things do come,” said Putts, still bent on 
putting her at her ease, quite unnecessarily since 
she was already perfectly at her ease. 

“Not always,” she said primly. 

“Picnics do, because they are Grannie Patts’ 
promise,” said Putts valiantly. 

“Well parcels don’t,” said the little girl. 

Putts frowned. What had parcels got to do 
226 


GRANNIE 


with it? It wasn’t anybody’s birthday either. 
Anyhow his parcels always came. 

“There aren’t any presents to-day, it’s just a 
picnic,” he explained, getting rather pink. 

The little girl kindly said she didn’t mean those 
sort of parcels. She was the only child of a 
young mother, and I suspected that the parcels 
that didn’t come were probably connected with 
the clothes of her smart mother. The little girl 
was very smart too. Putts appraised her with 
critical eyes. “Are you going to paddle?” 

The little girl shook her head, smiling at his 
simplicity. 

At this moment two little boys arrived, two 
very keen, very excited little boys. 

“ Paddlel ” said one, “rather ! We’ve got a 
change up to here,” pointing to his waist line, 
“so we’ve decided to paddle up to there.” 

“Up to where?” said Putts. 

“Here,” said the little boy, indicating again his 
waist line. 

“Let me see,” said Bounce, elbowing her way 
through what had become quite a little crowd. 

“That’s bathing,” said the demure little girl 
scornfully. And I think she was possibly right. 

227 


GRANNIE 


Could one go higher and still call it paddling? 
Where does paddling end and bathing begin? 

At the mention of bathing Bounce got very 
pink. “I don’t mix bathe/’ she said hurriedly. 

She hates bathing and clings to the best excuse 
she can find, which is that on one occasion her 
Nannie had said she didn’t hold with mixed bath- 
ing. Neither did Bounce and she was determined 
we should know it. 

“I don’t mix bathe,” she repeated aggressively. 

“Is it picnic time?” asked Putts plaintively. 
“People do talk.” 

It was picnic time and the place chosen was a 
lovely one. It was — as it should be — under the 
shade of a beech-tree, which tree must stand on 
a bank above a large meadow, in which the grass 
must grow knee-deep and, if possible, deeper still 
must grow buttercups. The bank must be an 
easy one, so that the smallest child can run up it 
with ease and roll down it with ecstasy. If the 
smallest child can do neither, the bank loses some- 
thing of the very reason for which it should exist, 
and a bank down which no child has ever rolled 
is, among banks, a poor thing. 

I had begged Claudia, in ordering the food, to 
remember she had once been a child and forget, 
228 


GRANNIE 


for the moment, her theories about the feeding 
of children. My theory is that at picnics they 
should eat what they like and as much as they 
can. The results must be anticipated by kind 
Nannies and wise mothers, and no blame must be 
attached to grandmothers, for they are known 
to have no sense. 

The children scampered off and I promised to 
follow more sedately in a few minutes; but I 
wanted first to see Speedwell. On my way to see 
him I met some weeds in my path and stooped 
to argue with them, determined to go to the root 
of the matter. When I rose again triumphant, I 
found my hands, and the two fine weeds within 
them, gathered into the grasp of two thin brown 
hands and held there for quite a long time, while 
the man who owned them poured into my aston- 
ished ears a long list of all the benefits he had 
received at my hands. They now gave him noth- 
ing but two weeds — and earthy weeds at that. 

I said if he would kindly tell me who he was 
it would make it so very much easier. He asked 
me to forgive him. “Of course, how could you 
know?” 

I said I didn’t. 

“I am Jordan Rivers, James Rivers.” 

229 


GRANNIE 


My garden seemed to grow Jameses who came 
with surprising suddenness and demanded aston- 
ishing things at my hands. 

“You said I might!” he pleaded. 

“Of course, my dear boy,” and I led him to a 
seat and I sat down, and he sat beside me. I 
looked at him and discovered him no boy; yet 
there was that in his smile which showed there 
still remained something of the boy in his heart, 
and in his manner a shyness which in a strong 
man is rather attractive to an old woman — and 
flattering even. There are some men whose eyes 
express homage and there are some women who 
look for this, though they are old and have no 
right to expect it. In Jordan Rivers I read a look 
that said quite plainly, “7 once had a mother just 
like you.” That was all; but I liked it, and, for 
it and other things, I liked him. So this was the 
man to whom I had written unreservedly of the 
feelings of a grandmother. 

I felt the situation keenly, although I realised 
that with some men I might have felt it still more 
acutely. 

“Is my hat straight?” I asked. 

“Perfectly,” he answered, and I felt better, 
knowing that if a woman has once consulted a 
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GRANNIE 


man on matters of dress it implies a certain in- 
timacy and cements a friendship. 

I showed him round the garden and all over 
the house, and never once did I think of the 
children and their picnic. I pointed out his photo- 
graph on Claudia’s mantelpiece. But of Claudia 
I said nothing. 

He stayed on and, I remember now, he sat in 
the drawing-room looking at the crack at the 
bottom of the door, watching for the door to 
open, just as a dog watches. I found him charm- 
ing, just the one man in the world to whom I 
could have written such a letter as the one which 
was posted by mistake. But I could not tell 
him it was posted by mistake, because he referred 
to it so often, and never without thanking me 
profusely. It had arrived, it seemed, at an op- 
portune moment, just when he had been feeling 
particularly depressed, his work apparently fruit- 
less, and the outlook generally black. And yet 
what had so cheered him? Was he so interested 
in grandmothers? I could not determine. 

Just as he was about to go the door opened 
and in came Claudia. 

“Your hat is on hind-part before, darling,” she 

231 


GRANNIE 


said, not looking at Sir James. I turned to him, 
“You told me it was all right.” 

And he, blushing through his tan, said it had 
seemed so to him. 

I suppose it had. In that part of the world 
from which he had come perhaps hats were not 
generally worn. 

In the meantime Claudia had seen Sir James 
but did not recognise him. “Sir James Rivers, 
Claudia,” I said. 

Now Claudia is nothing if not dignified; but 
she looked, turned tail, and fled. Fearing she 
must be ill I went after her. Coming down the 
stairs as I went up I met Don’t, who, flinging her 
arms round my neck, said, “He’s come, he’s come.” 

“Who?” I asked. 

“Why, he” she repeated ; “dearest darling, you 
shall never feel lonely or deserted, I promise 
you!” 

“I want Claudia,” I said with dignity. There 
are moments when Don’t overpowers. 

“Does hel That is the question!” 

“Dearest child, I have a visitor waiting; I will 
see you later,” and I went to fetch Claudia, won- 
dering at her rudeness. 

I found her with every hat she possessed strewn 
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GRANNIE 


about the room. As I went in she said, “Will this 
one do?” turning a radiant face towards me. 

I said I thought it would do excellently. 

Then she said she thought I was Don't. 

“I want you to come down and see Sir James 
Rivers.” 

She went — at a surprising pace. I was going 
to follow her when I was forcibly prevented by 
Don't. “Sit down, darling,” she commanded me, 
and I sat down, on the stairs of course, in true 
Lullington fashion. Then I mildly said I didn't 
understand in the least. So Don't enlightened 
me, and so blinding was the illumination that I 
felt I should never see anything again. It seemed 
that all along I had seen very little. 

“Didn't you guess Claudia was in love?” asked 
Don't incredulous. I shook my head. 

“Didn't her not marrying require some expla- 
nation?” 

Again I shook my head. She had not chosen 
to marry, that was all. She had been so busy 
managing me. Don't kissed me. 

“Darling,” she said, “mothers are delicious 
things; but they don't look deep, deep down. 
They take for granted they know; and, because 
a child has ceased to cry for jam, they imagine 

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GRANNIE 


she never cries. She only doesn’t cry for jam 
because she has ceased to want jam, not because 
she can’t cry.” 

I put my hand on the knee of the impertinent 
child and asked her how she knew so much. 

“I don’t know how I knew this; but I guessed 
a little and Claudia wouldn’t tell me a little, and 
Benny tried to hide so much from me that alto- 
gether I gained a certain amount of information. 
Then I have watched Claudia in church and I 
have seen her really pray. Now most people 
don’t do that. It is only those who want some- 
thing frightfully who really pray. Claudia wanted 
something frightfully; and two or three times I 
have seen her cry ” 

That was going too far. “Don’t dear, not cry! 
Claudia has never done that!” 

Don’t nodded. 

“And who is the man?” I asked, bewildered. 

“Do you mean to say you don’t know?” 

Don’t held my hands and looked at me ear- 
nestly and long. 

“Why, he is in the drawing-room now,” she 
said tenderly, as though pitying my simplicity. 

“But she hasn’t seen him for years. . .” 

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GRANNIE 


“I believe,” said Don’t sententiously, “it isn’t 
necessary to see a man to love him.” 

I asked Don’t to leave me and she left me, 
and I went to Claudia’s bedroom. I opened the 
door, went in and closed it. I stood as it were 
in a strange country, where I had thought I knew 
not only every inch of the ground but every 
landmark. It seemed as I looked as if the pano- 
rama of my child’s simple life lay stretched out 
before me, a life in which I vainly imagined we 
had trodden every step side by side; yet how far 
apart we had wandered! Hanging on the wall 
was the first hunting crop her father had given 
her; the first brush she had brought home. On 
her mantelshelf were photographs of the boys in 
every stage of their school existence — in their run- 
ning things, in their cricketing flannels. There 
were photographs of nephews and nieces at every 
age. There was a miniature of me as a girl, a 
photograph of me as a young married woman, 
another of me as the mother of my children. 
There were photographs of her father, of Cynthia, 
of Bettine, at all ages. There was the photograph 
of Jordan Rivers. There was nothing to show 
it was more valued than any other. It might 
be presumed the housemaid dusted it not more 

235 


GRANNIE 


nor less carefully than she dusted all the others. 
I stood lost in the memories of the past until I 
was aroused from my dreams by the voice of 
Claudia calling me. I went downstairs. 

At the foot of the stairs a strange Claudia met 
me and I knew Don’t was right. Here was a 
younger, softer, much less managing daughter. 
There was a gentle entreaty in her voice and an 
apology even in her smile. “We want to tell 
you,” she said. And before I knew where I was I 
found myself kissing Jordan Rivers, who said, 
“We owe it to you.” I was growing accustomed 
to being kissed by young men and was afraid 
I might begin to look for it. 

“To you, darling,” repeated Claudia. 

It was very bewildering. In heaven we are 
told there will be no marriages nor giving in 
marriage. I shall miss it, no doubt, but it will 
be a rest. 

“The children!” I exclaimed. I had forgotten 
the picnic. 

I would rather meet ten strange son-in-laws- 
to-be than one disappointed Putts. 

It was six o’clock and in the distance I heard 
the voices of the children, who were returning 
from the picnic that should have been mine. They 
236 


GRANNIE 


streamed in to thank me. I held out my arms 
to Putts. He dodged under them and ran away. 
I called him, but there was no answer. 

“Thank you very much,” said the demure little 
girl. And the little boys thanked me awjully; 
but I looked round for Putts. 

“Did you enjoy it, children ?” I asked. 

“Awjully, thanks,” they said. 

“I didn't bathe,” said Bounce. “But I 
paddled!” she shouted. 

“Don't be excited, darling,” said the nurse, 
laying a restraining hand on a crumpled sun 
bonnet. 

“Where’s Putts?” I asked. 

“He’s gone to bed,” said Freddy. 

“Not so early, darling,” said the nurse, “surely!” 

“Yes, he has,” said Freddy, twirling round on 
one leg. 

I went upstairs and gently opened the door of 
Putts' room. There was nothing to be seen in 
the bed; but the bedclothes were disordered, and 
under them was the huddled form of an unhappy 
child. 

“Putts!” I said. 

No answer. 

“Putts, it's Grannie Patts.” 


237 


GRANNIE 


Still no answer. 

I went to the bed and I put my hand on what 
I imagined to be the head of the sad little heap. 
It moved, but only to escape my touch. Then I 
knew how grievously I had sinned, beyond all 
hope of forgiveness. 

“Putts,” I said, “if you did something very 
wrong I should ask you to tell me why you had 
done it, and what had made you do it. Won’t 
you ask me?” 

“You promised ,” came a smothered voice. 

“I did, Putts.” 

“And . . . that beastly . . . little girl . . . 
said you . . . wouldn’t come . . . and I said 
you would.” 

So that was it. The woman was at the bottom 
of it. I sat down on the bed. “Let me see your 
face, Puttikins,” I pleaded. 

From under the clothes there emerged a pink, 
angry, resentful little face. 

I held out my arms and Putts threw himself 
into them. 

“Don’t you know, Putts, there is no other little 
boy in the world I love like my Putts? Oughtn’t 
he to have known there was some good reason?” 

“But . . . you promised.” 

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GRANNIE 


“I know I did, darling, and do you know I am 
rather a proud Grannie Patts, because if you were 
so sure I wouldn’t break my promise it shows I 
have never broken it before, doesn’t it?” 

“That’s why,” he persisted, but smiling. 

“Well, shall I tell you why I broke it this 
time?” 

“May I tell the beastly little girl?” he stipu- 
lated. 

“I dare say you may.” 

He snuggled up to me and I told him about 
Claudia and he was tremendously interested. 

“Married?” he said, sitting up straight, “it is 
rum, isn’t it? Did it happen to-day? Did Aunt 
Claudia ask him to?” 

“No — no, darling.” 

“The beastly little girl asked me to — and I said 
No.” 

I said I thought he had done wisely. 

“May I get up?” 

I asked him if he wanted to, now that he was 
comfy in bed. 

“ Rather !” he said; “it won’t take a jiff. Will 
you show me the man? And will you walk to 
the picnic place with me?” 

I showed him the man and we walked to the 

239 


GRANNIE 


picnic place and all was peace and happiness 
again. I was forgiven, and there is nothing half- 
hearted about Putts’ forgiveness. It is as over- 
whelming as it is dishevelling. 

Now to show how demoralising a thing it is to 
be a grandmother, I confess that I felt even more 
pleasure over that than I did over the happiness 
of my dear Claudia. Our children, grown up, can 
do without us. But grandmothers cannot do with- 
out the arms of a Putts around them, even though 
the arms strangle them. 

“Now tell me all about it, Claudia,” I said, and 
she told me a little. First of all that Benny knew 
— had known for twenty years. 

I begged Claudia not to be absurd, reminding 
her that twenty years ago she had been ten years 
old and in pinafores. 

“Twelve,” she corrected me, without flinching. 

“Twelve then. What difference does two years 
make in the absurdity of the ages? You were 
a child — a baby almost.” 

“I was — a horribly, horribly precocious baby. 
I loved him because he was so big and so silent, 
and when he wasn’t silent he talked about ele- 
phants, which fascinated me. And he told me 
the quagga was extinct and I felt so frightfully 
240 


GRANNIE 


sorry for the quagga; then for him, then for every- 
body, and when I felt sorry for any one I instantly 
loved him. Of course I loved him as a child 
loves a grown-up who is kind to her. Then when 
I grew older I began to know how much I loved 
him. When I came out I found still more how 
much, and in what way, I loved him. When 
other men cared for me, that showed me still 
more clearly, and I never, never heard anything 
of him. I lived on what I could gather in the 
papers. Every mention of him kept me going 
till the next. Then after years and years, by 
some miraculous chance he wrote to you — about 
those votes, and of all letters you chose to answer 
just that one, never asking me if I would do it 
for you, as you so often do! I tried to talk to 
Cynthia about him, but she had forgotten. In 
the old days I loved him so much that I was 
furious with Cynthia for not loving him more.” 

“Wait, Claudia; it was I who told him you had 
his photograph.” 

“Yes, darling, we owe it all to you.” 

“There may be some, good in the outpouring 
of a soul then?” 

A hug was all the answer I got. 

When Claudia left me a penitent Benny crept 

241 


GRANNIE 


into my room. She had come for forgiveness. 
Could I withhold it? 

“It’s been hard to keep silent, ma’am,” she 
pleaded. 

“But why did you?” I asked, trying to be 
stern. 

“Because Miss Claudia said it was so hopeless 
and she didn’t want you troubled.” 

“But, Benny, she was such a child.” 

“She loved him as a child loves.” 

“But she is not a child now.” 

“No, ma’am; but with her the love has grown. 
As she has grown it has grown. She doesn’t know 
it; but I have watched her and I know.” 

“You mean, Benny, that the man she loves is 
the man of her own making?” 

“Yes, ma’am, I do.” 

“But will she be happy, Benny?” 

“I think so, ma’am. It seems she’s made a 
gentleman to suit herself, and no one else could 
have done it so entirely to Miss Claudia’s satis- 
faction.” 

“But only in imagination, Benny.” 

“I think that’s all that’s necessary with Miss 
Claudia, ma’am, speaking from my experience; 
and he’s a very nice gentleman — you’ve only got 
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GRANNIE 


to look at him to see that — and he’ll never dis- 
appoint her, when he knows what she expects.” 

It was all very perplexing. But I believe Benny 
was right. Claudia had created a man after her 
own pattern. 

Don’t was deliriously happy and had hopes of 
being bridesmaid. Claudia vowed herself too old 
for bridesmaids, and Jordan pleaded for a quiet 
wedding. 


243 


XX 


Cynthia wrote that I had neglected her. I had 
been to Bettine, to Anna even, whereas to her I 
had not been for ages, and the children were 
growing up without that intimate knowledge of 
their grandmother which she looked upon as one 
of their most valuable social assets. Dear Cynthia, 
what a big word to describe so small an old 
woman! I wrote to say I should certainly not 
like the children to grow up without knowing the 
weaknesses of their grandmother, and as their 
mother was one of the most pronounced of many, 
I would come on whatever day she chose to sug- 
gest. Besides, there was much I wished to con- 
sult her about — Claudia’s marriage among other 
things. Should it be from Winthorpe or from 
Anne’s Folly? I knew which Cynthia would 
choose, but was glad to give her the opportunity 
to advise. 

As it turned out there was no need for either 
of us to arrange anything, for one day I got a 
telegram signed “Claudia Rivers.” So James had 
244 


GRANNIE 


his quiet way and Claudia her wedding. But 
that comes later. 

Cynthia lives in the country and withstands 
it. She prides herself on not vegetating. She is 
very smart, so smart that it was said of her at 
one time that she took a fork to her soup. But 
fashions in the using of forks and spoons change, 
whereas the seven vulgarities possible in the eat- 
ing of an egg remain. Cynthia’s children commit 
none of them. 

Cynthia’s husband enjoys her. He is grateful 
to her for the ordering of his house, and for her 
cleverness in keeping herself young and suffi- 
ciently beautiful. Her home is a model of what 
a home should be, supposing the standard to 
be one of ordered perfection. Her servants wear 
small black bonnets on Sunday, which in a young 
— comparatively young — mistress is something of 
a moral achievement nowadays. Her maidserv- 
ants, by the way, are quick to marry and marry 
well. Is there something after all in those bon- 
nets? Do the velvet bows lure where cotton roses 
fail? 

Claudia says that the Kenleigh servants in the 
kitchen wear brooches with “Kitchen” on them 
and the housemaids brooches with “House” on 

245 


GRANNIE 


them. But one manager is very apt to laugh at 
the expense of another. 

Of all my children Cynthia perhaps is the only 
one who has any claim to real beauty, except in 
the eyes of a mother. She is gloriously healthy 
and makes a cult of happiness. She says she is 
the happiest woman in the world and the least 
troubled — therefore this old mother seems of little 
use to her. When the babies came, Cynthia could 
afford to pay nurses to look after them who knew 
far more about babies than I did, so my advice 
was not asked. Cynthia’s John is rich, healthy 
and acquiescent. He prides himself on Cynthia’s 
management and not a little on his children. He 
has some reason to do that, for if they owe their 
straight noses to their mother, they owe the docil- 
ity of their tempers to him. And which is it 
better to live with? The children, too, admire 
their mother from the bottom of their loyal little 
hearts, and, as I am the mother of theirs, I find, 
whenever I visit them, a warm welcome awaiting 
me. But I must not go to the school-room to 
get it, I must wait until the children come down, 
which they do, starched and befrilled, at half-past 
five. 

I arrived at Kenleigh at half-past five, Benny 
246 


GRANNIE 


in attendance with more than my ordinary 
amount of luggage. Cynthia demands full dress 
every evening, and the sight of my “black velvet” 
pains her. Benny, only too willing to uphold the 
dignity of the family, upholds Cynthia. 

Kenleigh is a large, comfortable house of no 
particular date, or rather of many. Its outer 
doors open on to a wide and spacious marble- 
tiled hall, through which hall one passes peril- 
ously to an inner and larger one, used as a sitting- 
room and furnished as Cynthia’s background. 

Cynthia was sitting at the tea-table when I was 
announced (which no grandmother should ever 
be), and her little girls were grouped around her. 
They are all fair, all tall, all blue-eyed. Their 
hair is cut in fringes across their foreheads in a 
manner that reminds me of Millais’ “Cherry 
Ripe.” It is a fashion I like because I rarely see 
it nowadays, and Cynthia wore her hair so when 
she was a child. 

Cynthia’s children are delightfully clean. If 
they were dirtier I think they might be happier. 
When children are young they should surely have 
their grubby moments. 

“Grannie,” said Cynthia, “we never heard you 
come,” and she and the children closed in upon 

247 


GRANNIE 


me. “Don’t tumble your clean frocks, children/’ 
said their mother, and the little girls smoothed 
their muslins and retired into their pretty shells 
of shyness. 

I said how well they looked, and Cynthia said, 
“Of course they are well.” The children beamed. 
“And happy,” she added in her bracing manner. 

“Boots is going to have a new pony,” said 
Shoes in explanation. 

“No wonder she’s happy,” said Spats sighing. 
“I wonder what horse power it will be,” she added, 
being of the motor mind and habit. 

“I wouldn’t be happy to have a new pony if 
I had a darling old one,” said Boots sentimentally. 

“Old friends are best, Boots,” I agreed. 

“My new one will really be best, grannie,” she 
whispered, “because it can jump, only it doesn’t. 
Hermione is out riding now and hers can’t jump 
one bit — only it will.” Perplexing ponies these! 

Hermione is the eldest of the four girls and 
had just passed her seventeenth birthday at the 
time of my visit. 

It is my firm conviction, backed up by Claudia’s, 
that Cynthia has a list, in her writing-table drawer 
under lock and key, of all the eligible young men 
within motoring distance of Kenleigh. In an- 
248 


GRANNIE 


other drawer, of young men in my neighbourhood. 
In another, of young men in the neighbourhood 
of Winthorpe. London, being too vast a field to 
file, is left to chance. It never occurs to her that 
Hermione may fall in love with an ineligible 
young man, nor is it necessary it should, because 
nobody belonging to Cynthia is supposed to do 
anything contrary to her wishes, and as a rule 
they don’t. Even the flowers in her garden are 
tied up and restrained, and violets are coerced 
into gross feeding so that they may be larger and 
finer than the violets of other people. 

When I had had tea, Boots, Shoes and Spats 
volunteered to see me to my room. 

“May we?” they asked, looking to their mother. 
She said they might, telling them at the same 
time that in allowing them to do so she was 
depriving herself of a very great pleasure and 
privilege. 

“Mother is good,” sighed Spats as we marched 
upstairs. 

“She does try hard,” murmured Boots. 

“She doesn’t have to try,” said Spats loyally, 
“it comes — just comes.” 

“Then it isn’t so specially good,” argued Boots. 

249 


GRANNIE 


“It is,” said Spats. “You are trying to take 
away from our mother’s goodness.” 

“I don’t think so,” said Boots, ignoring the last 
accusation. “Is it, grannie?” 

“Is it what?” I asked, hedging. 

There was a pause. 

“There, she can’t say,” said Spats triumph- 
antly. 

Once in my room, they sat themselves down 
and began to talk. 

“We’ve got a new Fraulein,” they all exclaimed 
at once. 

“Nice?” I asked. 

“Wait and see — don't say, Boots,” pleaded 
Spats. 

And Spats begged me to wait and not ask 
Shoes. 

“Grannie,” said Spats suddenly, “is Aunt 
Claudia really going to be married?” 

“Yes, darling, I hope so.” 

“Why do you hope so? Mother says she 
oughtn’t to leave you until you ... I .mean 
. . . didn’t she, Boots?” 

“Yes, she did, and father said you wouldn’t 
want her to stay, and mother said it mightn’t 
be ” 


250 


GRANNIE 


“Listen, darlings. When you hear your father 
and mother talking together you mustn’t repeat 
what they say.” 

“Will Aunt Claudia live in India or some- 
where?” asked Spats tactfully. 

“Yes, somewhere, darling. I am not quite sure 
where.” 

“When I’m married,” said Boots thoughtfully, 
“I shouldn’t like to live in India for fear God 
should send me a black baby by mistake. D’you 
suppose He would, grannie?” 

I said I thought not. 

“Is He very careful — very, very careful?” 

I said very, very careful. 

“That’s why mother believes in Him then, I 
expect,” said Spats; “she says she likes people to 
be thorough. She believes in Harrods too.” 

“But Harrods isn’t the same as God,” said 
Shoes, who had been very silent and thoughtful. 
“Every one has to believe in God.” 

“Why should they?” said Boots. “Suppose they 
are heathen, what then? They needn’t.” 

“White people must,” said Shoes, “because He 
made them.” 

“He made black ones too.” 


251 


GRANNIE 


“Oh no, darling, you mustn’t say that,” said 
Shoes, “it’s frightfully irreverent.” 

“Didn’t He, grannie?” 

“It is better not to argue about these things, 
darlings.” 

“But didn't He?” persisted Boots. 

“Yes, Shoes has forgotten. God made every 
one.” 

“Then,” said Shoes vindictively, “if He’s so 
frightfully busy He’s certain to make a mistake 
some time or other and He will send Boots a black 
baby, and it will serve her right for saying things 
against me.” 

Here Boots jumped up and confronted Shoes. 
“Swallow, Shoes, and say it quickly, the sun is 
going down in your wrath, look!” She pointed 
out of the window to the sun, which was irrevo- 
cably slipping behind the beech-trees, flushed with 
the redness of Shoes’ wrath. 

Obediently Shoes swallowed and began, in a 
quavering voice, to recite Mrs. Hemans’ heart- 
breaking poem, “Oh call my brother back to me, 
I cannot play alone.” 

“We have to say that to remind us, when we 
fight. Nannie makes us. It’s to make Shoes 
think what she would do if I died in the night,” 
252 


GRANNIE 


Boots explained complacently, in a most cheerful 
voice, as if looking forward to a very exciting 
event for herself and a very uncomfortable ex- 
perience for Shoes. “Go on, Shoes, to the end — 
don’t stop.” 

Poor Shoes in floods of tears gulped to the end 
of the cruelly morbid and tragic poem, then she 
and Boots kissed to make up. “And you aren’t 
a brother after all, worse luck,” sobbed Shoes. 

Spats unmoved had been watching Benny un- 
pack. She stood in awed reverence before my 
black gown laid out on the bed. “Isn’t it lovely?” 
she said, touching the trimming with a tentative 
finger. “When I grow up I'm going to have a 
dress trimmed with sepoys.” 

Boots, Shoes and Spats are respectively aged 
nine, seven and five. Their names they got from 
their father, and not from their godfathers and 
godmothers in their baptism. Cynthia fought 
against the names, but in this one instance John 
prevailed. He says the day he is allowed to have 
his three spaniels in the house he will call the 
three children Cynthia, Bettine and Clarissa, but 
not until then. 

After the children had gone to bed I went out 
into the garden. Cynthia promised to join me 

253 


GRANNIE 


after she had read the evening paper. I walked 
along the terrace and down the steps into the rose 
garden. The glory of the roses was gone. But, 
being Cynthia’s garden, I knew how great the 
glory must have been. It might possibly have 
fallen short of my idea of perfection, because in 
roses Cynthia looks for form not fragrance. In 
looking for a rose now I found a girl. She was 
hardly more — perhaps a little. The dark eyes 
that met mine were bright with unshed tears. 
My heart went out to her as quickly as she tried 
to slip past me. “Wait!” I said, “are you Frau- 
lein?” 

She was. 

“I am Mrs. Sanford’s mother,” I explained. 

Her face brightened. “Ach so, then will the 
children be so pleased. They so talked of your 
coming. The first thing in the morning, the last 
thing at night, they speak of their grandmother.” 

I was surprised to hear it. They had always 
seemed to me dear children, but rather less af- 
fectionate than my other grandchildren. 

“I am looking, Fraulein, for a rose that smells.” 

“That will you not easily find,” she said, smil- 
ing. “But I know where there is one. Will you 
come?” 

254 


GRANNIE 


An invitation so charmingly given was not to 
be refused. She led the way to the children’s 
garden and in Boots’ plot I found a tree covered 
with red roses. Fraulein went down on her knees 
before it, in which act of worship I would have 
joined had I been younger. 

“Here,” she said. 

“Ah!” I breathed in the scent deeply and grate- 
fully, “how delicious.” 

“It is to the children we must come at last for 
things that are most good,” said the little Frau- 
lein, smiling. 

“You love children?” I asked. 

“Could I teach where I did not love?” 

“I wish every one who teaches knew that.” 

“They may know it, but they cannot afford 
to say it,” she said. “It is the thing for which 
I most thank God that I have been given so great 
a love for children, or would I be of small use.” 

“They are good children, my grandchildren I 
mean.” 

She raised her hands in protest. “That do I 
not ask, else would I not love them as I do.” 

“Too good are they?” I suggested. 

“I would see them happier.” 

This surprised me, knowing Cynthia’s creed 

255 


GRANNIE 


to be the pursuit of happiness and her pride the 
attainment of it for herself and children. 

Fraulein asked me if I would come and see the 
children the next day. I said should I not see 
them, naturally, and she said she meant in their 
schoolroom. “In the woods,” she explained. 

“In the woods?” I asked. 

“In the woods, yes.” 

I promised to see them wherever they might 
be, and Fraulein picked a red rose and gave it to 
me. “For happiness,” she said. I pinned happi- 
ness into my lace scarf and I went back to the 
house wondering what sorrow it was that welled 
in the eyes of the little Fraulein. Was it Heim- 
weh? I could imagine it. I had something of 
the same feeling in my own heart. The ordered 
perfection of Cynthia’s house always produced 
it. I went back to the little Fraulein and asked 
her if anything troubled her. (I had often felt 
how lonely it must be for girls away from their 
homes, their countries, their people.) Perhaps 
she could tell me. “I have daughters of my 
own and grandchildren grown up. Our dear, 
dear Mademoiselle stayed with us for years and 
became one of us. Can you not look forward 
256 


GRANNIE 


to that, or perhaps to a far greater happiness, a 
home of your own?” 

“You would mean marriage?” she asked, and 
she shook her head. “That could not be for 
me.” 

“Then I cannot help you?” 

“It is possible.” 

“Not unless you tell me.” 

“It is that I must leave, and I so love the 
children. I am not satisfied with my work. The 
three little girls are dogs — three little dogs. They 
answer to the names of dogs. When their father 
would call them he whistles! He tells them to 
take their paws off the table — at meals he says 
that! and when he helps them to food he says, 
Taid for/ Till then must they not eat. It is 
degrading. He has a passion for the dogs.” 

I breathed again. It was much better than I 
had expected. I had feared a love complication. 

I said I thought their mother's influence would 
counteract their father's; that I found them 
charming little girls. 

“But they listen to what is said, then they go 
straight and repeat.” 

That I knew. 


257 


GRANNIE 


“They have not the big interests in life — the 
lovely things in life they know not.” 

“But if you leave them will they have a better 
chance?” 

That suggested a new train of thought and with 
it came Cynthia. 

She could not have been a more delightful com- 
panion than she was that evening. But I noticed 
she glided over any family news that didn’t ex- 
actly coincide with her idea of what news in a 
well-conducted family should be. She preferred 
to think it imagination on my part that Hugh 
should be in love with Diana Lullington. “After 
all, darling, Diana wouldn’t be the least use to 
Hugh as a wife, would she? Mrs. Lullington must 
know Hugh is susceptible enough to fall in love 
with a pretty girl but much too wise to marry 
her.” 

The next day Cynthia broke to me gently that 
she was taking Hermione to town for the day, 
could I amuse myself? I assured her I could. 
I had much to see; red roses to smell and Fraulein 
to know. 

It was arranged, by Cynthia, that so soon as 
she and Hermione had started I should be taken 
to the woods where the children were doing their 
258 


GRANNIE 


lessons. Of course I would not disturb them — 
this was a stipulation. I went in the pony cart 
and at the edge of the wood I was met by Frau- 
lein. There were no tears in her eyes, their bright- 
ness was now due to excitement. Her cheeks 
were flushed. She was very young, little more 
than a child herself, little older than the children 
she taught. 

“This way, please!” she said, and she made 
way for me, brushing the brambles from my path. 
We came to a clearing in the wood and I heard 
the sound of laughing voices. There can be no 
harm in lessons when children laugh. A moment 
later there emerged from the wood three dirty 
little boys. They wore what I think are called 
“shorts,” shirts and no hats. The only thing that 
proclaimed them girls was their hair, and that 
was piled on their heads. 

“We are wild Indians, grannie,” they cried. 

They were undoubtedly wild. 

“It's simply glorious, look at our hands.” They 
held them out. I looked and could not have 
wished them dirtier. 

“Filthy,” I said. 

The Indians it seemed must hunt for their liv- 
ing, and in hunting grow exceeding dirty; must 

259 


GRANNIE 


cook what they killed, and dig, sow and plant all 
at the same time. “You needn’t be frightened, 
grannie,” said Boots, “it’s only pretence ; we don’t 
kill anything.” 

They did not kill anything ; but they did every- 
thing children love doing, so long as they are not 
as a rule allowed to do it. 

“Children must be dirty,” pleaded Fraulein, 
“else are they no children.” 

I nodded. 

“They will be as clean as ever when we go 
home. They so quickly respond to soap and 
water.” 

“They are so fair,” I said. 

Fraulein then poured out her heart to me, and 
it was brimming over with sorrow at the un- 
naturalness of the children’s upbringing. They 
were taught this and that, and in just one par- 
ticular way. They must sit so, walk so and stand 
so, all by order. No originality must they have! 
They had not enough to occupy their minds. 
They spoke of this marriage, of the other mar- 
riage. They played no real games. They played 
never with a boy, which in itself was bad, be- 
cause they were beginning — because of his tre- 
mendous rareness — to think of him as something 
260 


GRANNIE 


fearfully and wonderfully exciting. Fraulein said 
this with such earnestness that I nearly laughed. 
The thought of a boy being so rare as to be fear- 
fully exciting was rather delightful. But with 
Fraulein one must not laugh at moments so seri- 
ous. 

I loved my day in the woods, and I learned as 
much as the children. I found perhaps fewer 
varieties of wild flowers; learned a little less of 
the ways of birds and stalked (the expression was 
theirs) no insects. Not that I was above stalking 
insects, except in the sense that they were so far 
below me that I could not see them. The chil- 
dren acted a play; I was audience. When they 
read I listened. What they cooked I swallowed. 
I cannot say I loved that; but I did not flinch 
from my duty as a grandmother. 

I asked Fraulein why things so innocent should 
be kept from the children's mother. I thought 
she would love to see them playing in the wood. 

“Legs bare?" asked Fraulein with her eyes wide 
open, “the trousers — shorts? Ten thousand 
times no. But it is no sin what we do?" 

Assuredly it was no sin. 

“Now children, for things of beauty," said 
Fraulein, “go!" and the children ran away, and 

261 


GRANNIE 


in a few minutes there sprang into the clearing 
three woodland nymphs in brown rags — glad rags 
if ever rags were glad! On their heads were 
wreaths of flowers, in their feet the spirit of danc- 
ing itself. Fraulein sat on the stump of a tree 
and played on a whistle-pipe. If she had taught 
the children nothing else she had taught them to 
be beautiful. I pinched myself and said, “I am 
old Mrs. Legraye. These are the very conven- 
tional little girls of my extremely conventional 
but dearly loved daughter, Mrs. Sanford. John 
is a dear, but a magistrate for all that. Bravo, 
children, dance away!” and heavens, how they 
danced ! 

They ran, too, to the sound of music, through 
the bracken, into the wood and out again. They 
raised slim little arms in supplication to Heaven, 
and when Heaven showered gifts upon them, lit- 
tle pagans that they were, they pelted each other 
with the gifts of the gods — pretence again, but 
very delightful. 

All too soon came six o'clock. On a bench sat 
three little girls, with their golden hair neatly 
tied up in ribbons, respectively pink, white and 
blue. Their faces were washed. Their hands 
were clean. The glad rags were laid away, and 
262 


GRANNIE 


later home walked three demure little girls, driven 
by a Fraulein still more demure. In the shadow 
of the trees something moved. I stopped to see 
what it was. It winked at me. 

“Splendid, isn’t it?” said John, stepping out. 
“What wouldn’t the Palace give to get that?” 

There spoke the proud father, and he believed 
what he said — so did I. 

“You knew, John? You have seen it before?” 

“Whenever the gods ordain that Cynthia should 
go to London. During the summer, I have told 
her, I think it only right I should increase her 
dress allowance.” 

My son-in-law and I walked home together. 
Why had Fraulein not waited for me? Why 
should she suppose I should care to walk home 
by myself? 

I longed for my next day in the woods with the 
children, but Cynthia stayed at home and claimed 
my companionship. 

I asked her if she was pleased with Fraulein 
and she said she was entirely pleased. She found 
her sufficiently old-fashioned without being ex- 
actly prudish. “She understands that the chil- 
dren are to be essentially womanly. I know I am 
attempting almost the impossible in trying to 

263 


GRANNIE 


make them girls of twenty years ago, but the 
vogue for the girls of the present day will pass. 
The first rich young man who revolts will look 
for a different girl and he shall find three here!” 

“He should not require three,” I ventured. 

Cynthia smiled and said, so soon as one rich 
young man revolted others would quickly follow. 
“With Hermione,” she said; “I know I am too 
late. She must be as other girls are, because the 
young man of the present day is satisfied she 
should be. But in the cases of the others I am 
going to forestall fashion. They are to be brought 
up to meet a demand that will exist by the time 
they are ready to supply it.” 

I told Cynthia that what amazed me was that 
she should be my child. 

“Yes, darling, it is curious I suppose. You left 
us to go our own happy way. And it was entirely 
owing to my own management and good sense 
that I married John. You made no effort to 
ascertain the state of his affairs. He might have 
been poor for all you appeared to care. Neither 
did you prevent Bettine from marrying Derek, 
which as a mother you should have done — charm- 
ing and delightful as he undoubtedly is. But this 
much you certainly did for us. You set at rest 
264 


GRANNIE 


the doubts in the minds of men as to what we 
might possibly become when we grew old. They 
looked at you and took heart. Of course Bettine 
is happy, even ridiculously happy, but little 
Derek wouldn’t have died if Derek could have 
had the best advice.” 

“Don’t, Cynthia,” I protested, putting my hand 
on hers. 

“Well, darling, it’s got to be faced. It’s a 
fact.” 

“But it was no question of money. It was all 
so sudden.” 

“They thought so, I know, and it comforts them 
to think so. But a rich man sends for a doctor at 
the tiniest suspicion of a pain in a child’s finger 
whereas the poor man waits, because he knows it 
will probably be nothing. And nine times out 
of ten it is nothing. Bettine, of course, doesn’t 
think anything could have been done because she 
knows there is nothing on earth that she wouldn’t 
have done, no sacrifice she wouldn’t have made, 
and hers is not the nature that looks back, that 
thinks things might have been different, if some- 
thing else had been done! She has your trusting 
nature, and therefore when she is your age she 
will be just as adorable as you are.” 


265 


GRANNIE 


“Poor darling Bettine,” I said. 

“Yes, she is a darling, and she has borne her 
sorrow as none of us could have borne it; but 
there she is — without her child ! 

“My faith is not yours, Cynthia,” I said. 

“Well, you must own it’s a more practical faith. 
But we won't talk about it — Dick married Anna.” 

“And is he happy?” 

“Is he not? He has Patricia whom he adores. 
If ever Patricia is ill there is nothing he won’t be 
able to do for her.” 

“And yet she is going to marry a poor man.” 

“I can’t imagine how Anna can allow that! A 
woman who so inexorably changes her figure with 
every fashion should be able to keep so small a 
thing as a daughter within bounds. 

“Now there’s Hugh, you tell me quite calmly 
that he is going to marry Diana. How can it 
possibly be for his ultimate happiness? He will 
never have more than enough to live comfortably 
as a bachelor. He marries — can you help him? 
You will send him a hamper of vegetables twice a 
week — to begin with. Then when he forgets to 
return the hampers Speedwell will say there is 
nothing worth sending. And what isn’t worth 
sending will cost Diana fifteen shillings a week 
266 


GRANNIE 


in London! They will live in Chelsea or Ken- 
sington. Diana will live prettily and, in a pic- 
turesque way, untidily. She will imagine she 
can dress in embroidered collars — old muslin col- 
lars — and beads, and for a time she will. Her 
house will be charming and some good cook will 
leave an excellent place for a good home, which 
Hugh will boast of to his friends, and they will 
want to see if he really knows what a good cook 
is. That will mean dinners, which they will not 
be able to afford. Then the baby will come. 
Diana will talk of it for months as ‘Peter,’ and 
she will make his underclothes, using the piano 
as a thimble, and Hugh will cry over the deli- 
ciousness of it all. When Peter comes and proves 
a girl, they will laugh and say it doesn’t matter 
a bit, the next one can be Peter! Until which 
time they can call the girl Peter, because they 
have grown accustomed to the name. Hugh will 
know nothing (until experience teaches him) of 
sleepless nights, of convulsions, of ignorant nurses. 
He has no conception of what badly blacked boots 
mean. As the baby grows older and the indiffer- 
ent nurse matters less, or Diana has perhaps 
learned something, he will begin to breathe again. 
Then another baby will come. Two babies in a 

267 


GRANNIE 


small London house! Two perambulators in a 

small hall! Then in course of time, school- 

• „ )> 
mg 

“Cynthia, don’t!” 

“Yes, darling, I must! Diana in the meantime 
will have grown fat.” 

“My dear child,” I said with some warmth, “it’s 
quite absurd. I should like you to see some of 
Bettine’s friends who live in Chelsea.” 

“Wait, darling; how old are they? Quite 
young? And very pretty, very picturesque? But 
where are the pretty, picturesque Chelseaites of 
twenty years ago? In West Kensington? It de- 
pends on the number of the children. There — 
I’ve done.” 

I was glad she had. I did not dare take my 
poor darling Cynthia into my arms and cry over 
her and tell her what I knew, and that was that 
she had missed almost everything in life worth 
having. 

Had she ever seen in John’s eyes such a look as 
Derek gives Bettine a dozen times a day? And if 
the name of Derek and Bettine’s child is graven 
on a cross of stone, is it not also written on their 
hearts, drawing them closer and closer as the 
years go by? 

268 


GRANNIE 


Cynthia made me furious, though of course I 
love her dearly. 

“You are a very unworldly woman, darling,” 
she said, “and a much richer one than you de- 
serve — not now, of course! But you are a dar- 
ling and I would not like my children to have any 
other kind of grandmother — you understand?” 


269 


XXI 


While I was at Kenleigh, Hermione asked me 
if I thought it mattered enormously people being 
poor. 

I said it depended enormously on the people. 

The child then sighed and asked me if I had 
happened to notice Mr. Gomling in church. 

“Mr. Gomling ?” I said, really to mark time. I 
had noticed him. 

“I think you must have, he’s the curate.” 

“Yes, yes, I noticed the curate.” 

I was bound to admit it, for he had read the 
Litany as I had never in my long life heard it 
read. Its petitions — both temporal and spiritual 
— took on new meaning, all embracing in their 
supplication, perfect in their simplicity. I was 
amazed and ashamed to find a thing I had often 
found dull so splendid a revelation. It convinced 
me more than ever that we should not sing our 
prayers — if we would really pray. 

“Yes, I noticed the curate,” I admitted. 

“Well, grannie, I want you to be kind to him. 
Will you?” 

270 


GRANNIE 


“Why, darling?” 

“Because he’s the only thing I care for in the 
world — except you — and geography. Darling 
grannie!” Her hand stole into mine. 

Cynthia’s troubles were before her, and I 
thought with some malice of two perambulators 
in a very small hall. John could well afford to 
help to support their inmates. 

“You won’t tell, grannie,” whispered Hermione. 

“No, darling, I certainly won’t.” After all, 
what was there to tell? Hermione at nineteen 
might think very differently to Hermione at sev- 
enteen, and Mr. Gomling must know it. 

I looked at this my grandchild with fresh and 
interested eyes, and it dawned upon me that there 
was something of the curate’s wife about her. 
She took after the Sanfords rather than the Le- 
grayes, and there was a goodness and a demure- 
ness in her manner that promised much happiness 
to some Mr. Gomling in the future and much 
soup to some old women. 

I asked her if she played the harmonium and 
she said Yes, blushing as she made shy confession. 

“You wouldn’t do anything without the knowl- 
edge of your mother?” I suggested. 

“Do anything, grannie?” she asked, widening 

271 


GRANNIE 


her innocent eyes. “Oh no, except the har- 
monium. She doesn’t know I do that. She thinks 
them very vulgar things. Of course I wouldn’t 
do anything.” 

“Mr. Gomling doesn’t know?” 

“There isn’t anything to know. I only pray 
for him and he prays for me— every day in church, 
although he doesn’t know it.” 

“How?” I said, thinking of widows, Turks, in- 
fidels, within none of which categories could 
Hermione as yet come. 

“For all that are desolate and oppressed,” she 
said softly. 

Poor Hermione! how young, how dear, how 
funny and how serious children can be. 

She then asked if she might tell me something 
so that I might tell her if it was wrong. I shud- 
dered. How reluctantly would I convict this de- 
mure child of sin ! 

“It’s this, grannie — it’s a little complicated. I 
take the last letters of the words down the side 
of the prayer-book, and if I can spell his name out 
of those letters without using one twice, then I 
take it as a sign that it will come all right. Do 
you think that is wrong?” 

272 


GRANNIE 


“Not in the least, darling, only I shouldn’t build 
my hopes on such a thing.” 

She had yet another secret. She had written a 
novel. Would I read it and faithfully tell her 
what I thought of it? I promised to read it. 
Was it a love story? 

“Of course,” she said, then added, “sort of.” 

I took Hermione’s novel to my room and, sit- 
ting up in bed that night, I read it. It was not 
easy to read because it rolled up with a bang every 
now and then; but I was able to gather that her 
heroine was very poor, very beautiful and loved 
very dearly a young man also very poor — 
not beautiful but with a very honest face — the 
kind of face that did every one good who saw it. 
Hermione laid great stress on the fact that hon- 
esty, though a most commendable thing in itself, 
does not quickly lead to great riches. There was 
also a very rich young man who loved the heroine 
to distraction. He always turned very pale, by 
the way, when he saw her, and when she saw 
him she turned very red. So far there was noth- 
ing very unlike other novels written by other 
grandchildren. It was not even a great surprise 
to me when the heroine, for reasons clearly ex- 
plained, married the rich young man. The rea- 

273 


GRANNIE 


sons were that by so doing she would be able to 
enrich her parents in their extreme old age, edu- 
cate her numerous brothers and sisters (some of 
whom were still babies), and influence the future 
fortunes of the poor but honest young man. 

However, just before the wedding of the rich 
young man with the heroine the poor young man 
met his death in rescuing, from a burning house, 
the child of an Italian organ-grinder. (The or- 
gan was saved.) 

Before her marriage the heroine sent for the 
rich young man and told him she could never love 
him because she still loved the poor young man 
who was dead. Buried with him were her love and 
her life. The rich young man bit his lip and 
bowed. 

Hermione drew a veil over the marriage service, 
it was too tragic a thing to write about. At the 
church door, she told us, the couple virtuously — 
or virtually — parted. (Hermione had written 
and re-written both words.) 

Later, we find the young people established in 
their magnificent town house, with its marble 
staircase and other glories, and we are not sur- 
prised to find the bride the most beautiful woman 
in London. But, like the staircase, she seemed 
274 


GRANNIE 


to be made of marble. She was so cold, but in 
her eyes was a haunting sadness. (She showed 
this amount of feeling that whenever she heard 
an organ playing in the street she fainted.) 

She never saw her patient husband and it was 
altogether very tragic. 

Then Hermione sought to comfort her readers 
by saying that the husband had this consolation — 
that as the years went by he occasionally passed 
his beautiful wife and lovely children on the mar- 
ble staircase. 

I took off my spectacles here, rubbed them and 
put them on again. Yes, “his lovely children.” 
“And there was a look in his eyes of pathetic 
resignation which would have softened the heart 
of a harder woman than Hyacinth Lestrange.” 

Cynthia’s methods had answered better than 
she knew. Hermione was undoubtedly a girl of 
twenty years ago. Where was the young man who 
could appreciate her? 

“Did you read my story, grannie?” she asked 
very early next morning. 

“Yes, darling, I read it.” 

“Did you like it?” — this very shyly. The child 
has dear, calm, truthful eyes and she stood at the 

275 


GRANNIE 


end of my bed looking very clean in a pink cotton 
frock. 

I said I liked the story very much. 

“1 am afraid it is not very original.” 

“Well, darling, the marble staircase perhaps 
. . . but otherwise I think its originality is its 
most striking point.” 

She asked if I thought she might send it to a 
publisher? 

I suggested she should leave that to me. “You 
see, darling, I think it must be sent to a particular 
kind of a publisher — to one who will understand. 
... I should not like it to go anywhere. I am 
afraid it is too long for a short story and too short 
for a long one.” 

With that Hermione was content, and the novel 
lies in my writing-table drawer and will amuse 
her some day I dare say. 


276 


XXII 


“I thought of you in my sleep last night, 
grannie,” said Shoes as she sat down beside me. 
“May I stay with you?” She had a duster to 
hem, poor child. 

I begged her to stay, and she settled herself 
down and smiled. 

“Do you want the others?” she asked, putting 
her needle into the hem and pulling the thread 
straight through. “Oh — bother!” she exclaimed. 

“No, Shoes, I want you.” 

“I said you did,” she said complacently, knot- 
ting the cotton and holding up the discoloured 
little knot for my inspection. 

“I always want my grandchildren, but you most 
of all, just at present. So you dreamed of your 
grannie, did you?” 

“No, I never dream, I just think.” She spread 
the duster on my knee. 

“But you were asleep.” 

“Yes, I was,” she agreed, pricking me gently 
through the duster with her needle. 


277 


GRANNIE 


“Don’t, darling.” 

“Sorry, grannie. Was it you?” 

“Then it was dreaming — people call it that,” I 
said, returning to the subject of dreams. 

“Well, I don’t. I call it thinking in my sleep. 
I often do.” 

“What do you think about in your sleep?” 

“I run away.” 

I asked her why she should think in her sleep 
of running away. 

She said because it was a nice thought, and she 
took up her duster again. 

“You would like to run away, Shoes?” 

She nodded. 

“But aren’t you happy?” 

“Not so very,” she said sadly, eyeing the duster 
and its wavy hem. 

“But, darling, you have such a happy home! 
You ride every morning — and you drive every 
afternoon.” 

Shoes laid her hand on mine. “Yes, grannie, 
but think of driving every afternoon behind an 
umbrella.” 

“Then the games in the woods,” I suggested. 

“Hush,” said Shoes, putting a finger to my lips, 
“that’s a frightfully secret thing,” and she began 
278 


GRANNIE 

dusting her little boots — “a frightfully secret 
thing,” she repeated. 

So secret a thing was it that when Cynthia dis- 
covered it there was a terrible to-do, which ended 
in the dismissal of the little Fraulein. For her 
I pleaded not less eloquently than did the chil- 
dren, though with less vehemence perhaps. The 
three little girls rent the air with their lamenta- 
tions, and a harder heart than Cynthia’s, I should 
have thought, would have yielded to their en- 
treaties. But three pink little faces with swollen 
noses, and eyes invisible, failed to soften her heart 
and Fraulein went. It was not that Cynthia 
minded the dancing — but she did mind the deceit! 
That John knew made it rather worse than bet- 
ter. And a cloud dark as night gathered over 
Kenleigh, and three little girls — sad and sullen 
little girls — refused to be comforted. 

By stealth I stole up at night and soothed them 
one by one to sleep. The after-sob, or backwash, 
of a child’s crying is the most terribly upheaving 
of all emotions, and the three little beds shook 
under its force. 

Then rose triumphant the social Cynthia. A 
few days after Fraulein had gone and the children 
were supposed to have forgotten all about it, Cyn- 

279 


GRANNIE 


thia took her pen in hand and sent invitations 
to the county bidding them to an alfresco enter- 
tainment, and in the corner of the cards she 
wrote, “Dancing by children.” 

To so novel an entertainment the neighbours 
flocked. It was so clever of Mrs. Sanford to think 
of anything so delightful. 

The neighbours in foulard, in muslin, in silk 
and satin and in every shape and form of best 
hat, big hat and small, sat and waited — in a damp 
wood as luck would have it — and Cynthia waited 
and we all waited. But no children came, so no 
children danced. 

When diligently searched for they were found. 
But they were in no fit state to dance for they had 
no hair to speak of, and no eyelashes or eyebrows 
worth thinking about. At least Boots and Shoes 
had none. Spats, it transpired later, had lacked 
the courage at the last moment. 

“So we can’t dance,” said Boots blinking, “if 
we wanted to.” 

“No more we could,” spluttered Shoes, “with- 
out Fraulein.” 

And they couldn’t. Not that children couldn’t 
dance without a Fraulein, or for the matter of 
that without hair, eyelashes or eyebrows; but 
280 


GRANNIE 


Cynthia’s children couldn’t because, with her 
sense of the fitness of things, she would never 
allow it. 

So the neighbours had tea and coffee and ices 
and green figs and peaches and went their way, 
and Cynthia was left with a problem to solve. 

It was very naughty of the children, of course, 
I agreed. But grown-ups must remember in deal- 
ing with those Frauleins or Mademoiselles or 
Nannies whom children love that if punishment 
must be meted out it must be weighed with the 
measures of justice. 

Cynthia pleaded an excuse; she said she had 
other reasons for sending Fraulein away. There 
was the curate — evidently greatly attracted. And 
Cynthia could not have ideas of that kind put into 
Hermione’s little head. 

“And what is to happen to the little Fraulein?” 
I asked. 

“Isla wanted a governess for Putts, so I sent 
her there.” 

Most happy Fraulein, most blest Putts! I 
thought, but I did not say so. 

Boots and Shoes looked very ugly shorn of hair 
and eyebrows, but poor Spats was in a worse way 
— she was a sneak, and that is harder to bear. 

281 


GRANNIE 


“It's worse to be a sneak than to have no hair,” 
quoth Boots grandly. 

“And it’s true, grannie,” sobbed Spats, “but I 
couldn’t do it. I know it’s wrong ... I know it’s 
. . . awful . . . and I know I oughtn’t to say it 
. . . but I do love my hair.” 

I felt for poor Spats. She wasn’t the stuff of 
which martyrs are made. The other children 
might have forgiven her most things, but as they 
cheered up a little she laughed at them, and that 
they could not forgive, and I don’t wonder. 

Benny rescued the golden hair and made of it 
the stuffing for a pillow. That helped the shorn 
lambs more than anything — the pillow was so 
soft. Then the naughtiness of the children was 
forgotten in the face of a tragedy that came 
stealthily in the night — as tragedies do come — 
giving no warning of its coming. 

One night I had been asleep some time — and 
awake a long time — when I heard my bedroom 
door open very gently. “Who’s there?” I asked. 

“It’s me, darling — Cynthia,” and she turned on 
the light. 

She was in a dressing-gown with her hair in 
two long plaits. 

“How young you look, my child,” I said. 

282 


GRANNIE 


“I didn’t want you to be disturbed: there are 
people running about and I thought you might 
hear them, so I came to tell you it’s nothing. 
Spats isn’t very well and we’ve sent for the doc- 
tor. One can’t be too careful.” 

She sat down on my bed. “There is no need 
to be anxious,” she assured me, and as she spoke 
in her calm, level voice she pleated the lace frills 
on her dressing-gown, and I watched her fingers 
as she did it, and remembered that when they 
were tiny fingers they had been particularly diffi- 
cult to coax into little gloves. 

“There is no cause for anxiety?” I asked. 

“Oh, none whatever . . . she has probably 
eaten something that has disagreed with her. I 
wish I hadn’t said that about Bettine — it seemed 
a little unkind.” 

“My darling child, Bettine did all that was pos- 
sible.” 

“Yes, I know; but just too late.” 

“Even that is not certain,” I said. 

“Well, darling, if you hear noises you’ll know. 
Good night — or good morning, isn’t it?” She 
walked to the window and looked under the blind. 
“Yes, it’s quite light. It’s the darkness that makes 
one feel nervous— too absurd.” 


283 


GRANNIE 


For hours longer, it seemed, I lay awake, lis- 
tening. I heard the opening and shutting of 
doors, then the reassuring taps of the housemaids’ 
brushes on the staircase — one very comforting 
tap against my door. It must be all right or the 
housemaids wouldn’t be about their business — 
then it struck me that in Cynthia’s well-ordered 
house even death would not deter them from their 
sweeping. What absurd things one thinks of! 

Then outside my door I heard the whispering 
of men’s voices, John’s and another’s. Spats was 
probably quite well again. But in spite of the 
certainty that she must be so I sat up in bed and 
listened — and listened — and listened. If it had 
been Bettine’s child who was ill I should never 
have stayed in bed ; but Cynthia would not want 
me. She would beg me not to fuss. She was so 
calm, so collected, so certain. 

At last Benny came. “Benny?” I said. 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“The child?” 

“Mrs. Sanford seems quite happy, ma’am.” 

“And nurse, what does she say?” 

“Nothing, ma’am.” 

“She is not quite happy?” 

Benny shook her head. 

284 


GRANNIE 


“Could you find Miss Cynthia and ask her to 
come to me if she can — I don't want to worry 
her. . . ” 

Cynthia came; she was still in her dressing- 
gown. “Don't worry, mother. I haven't had time 
to dress. There are so many arrangements to 
make. John is telephoning now. He . . . Dr. 
Smart would like another opinion. Of course it's 
not necessary. It’s just a precaution, that's what 
I meant about Bettine. There's no one like Sir 
Peter Mason. He should be here in two hours." 

“Supposing he can come," I ventured. 

“John will make it worth his while, of course," 
said Cynthia confidently. “Don’t worry, darling," 
she added. 

I dressed. Benny was as silent as I wished to 
be. There was nothing to be said, nothing to be 
done that was not being done. Money was power. 
I had never before been so acutely conscious of the 
luxury of my bedroom. The lace on the dressing- 
table cover was real. I fingered it, and the feel of 
it seemed to comfort me. Cynthia could spend 
what she chose. Nurses had been sent for — doc- 
tors sent for. 

As Benny brushed my hair I could see her face 
in the glass; her lips were moving. That gave 

285 


GRANNIE 


me even greater comfort than the thought of 
John’s money. There was a quiet strength of de- 
termination in her face. 

“It’s a lovely day, Benny,” I said, longing for 
the reassurance of her voice. 

“It’s a lovely day, ma’am,” she answered. 

“The sun is very hot.” 

“The wind tempts the sun, ma’am.” 

My hair done, I walked to the window and 
looked out at the bright sunshine. I turned back 
into the room, glad to be away from the light. 
The day was too lovely, too, like Spats. The sun- 
shine reminded me of her hair, the blue sky of her 
eyes. 

The door opened and Cynthia came in. She 
was dressed. She was not so calm as she had been. 
She spoke impatiently. 

“Sir Peter Mason is away, mother — out of town. 
We have telephoned to several doctors — they are 
all away. It’s too bad — people are just as likely 
to be ill in August as at any other time.” 

“Telephone to a hospital,” I suggested. 

“I must have some one I know something about. 
... I must have the best. . . . John will pay 
anything. . . . I’m not worrying of course; but 
Dr. Smart looks anxious and John is too childish 
286 


GRANNIE 


for words. ... If it’s a question of an operation 
it is urgent ... it always is.” 

“Dr. Smart couldn’t do it?” 

“No, he hasn’t the nerve. . . . He’s too old and 
too fond of the child — besides, he’s an old idiot.” 

There was a knock at the door. Cynthia went 
to it. She came back. “There’s something wrong 
with the telephone.” 

“Ma’am,” said Benny, “I know.” 

“Do be quiet, Benny,” said Cynthia; “you can’t 
possibly know anything about it. Mother, come 
down and amuse John — do.” 

Benny had left the room. “She can’t be ridicu- 
lous enough to be offended,” said Cynthia. 

I knew Benny was far too understanding to be 
that. She did not come back for an hour; but 
when she came she brought with her a surgeon, 
and everything that was necessary was done and 
the life of Spats was saved. And Benny did it — 
not money! 

“How did you do it, Benny?” I asked. “How 
did you know where to find him?” 

She told me she had heard the coming of the 
great surgeon discussed in the housekeeper’s room. 
He had retired — having made, so it was said, a 
large fortune. She knew where the house was 

287 


GRANNIE 


and it took her exactly quarter of an hour to get 
there. Mrs. Sanford hadn't called, so the chauf- 
feur had never actually been there. 

“Go on, Benny dear." 

“Well, ma’am, I took upon myself to order the 
car, and I got to the house and I found the sur- 
geon with a little girl on his knee — he was telling 
her a story. I took that for a good omen. As I 
drove along I prayed that he might love children. 
I pointed to the child on his knee and I said, 
'There’s a little child lying in great danger a few 
miles from this.’ He asked, What child? and why 
other doctors weren’t sent for? I told him that 
it was holiday time, and doctors, like other peo- 
ple, were taking their holidays — also that the tele- 
phone had gone wrong. Then, ma’am, I told him 
it was his father who had years ago come to us in 
our distress . . . when our child. . . 

“How did you know that, Benny?" 

“Because it was the same name, ma’am, and 
the doctor’s face was the same face — just as good, 
just as kind. At the mention of his father’s name 
he slid the child off his knee and he said, 'Yes, 
yes, he married the Princess.’ And the little girl 
said, 'Did they have any children?’ — so like a 
child, ma’am — and the doctor said, 'Hundreds’; 

288 


GRANNIE 


then turning to me he asked, ‘Did he save the 
child ?' (meaning did his father save our child) 
and I shook my head. ‘My dear, good old father 
must have felt that. We must save this one, eh?’ 
he said, and he told me to hurry up ... as if it 
was me who was dawdling.” 

I nodded. My heart was too full for words. 
Benny went on. 

“In a few minutes — which seemed hours — the 
doctor was ready. He brought with him all that 
was necessary. He asked, as we came along, if 
it was my grandchild? Just for something to say, 
I should think. ' My grandchild?' I said. ‘I 
should like you to see her grandmother.' " 

“Dear Benny, you mustn't be so impulsively 
loyal,” I said, laying my hand on hers, which 
trembled beneath mine. 

“I couldn't help it, ma’am, and perhaps I 
wasn’t quite myself. It wasn't money that did it.” 

“No, it was the mercy of God and you — you 
wonderful Benny!” 

“No, ma'am, I didn't mean that. If I was any- 
thing, I was allowed to be His humble instru- 
ment. It was the name of his father — the doc- 
tor’s father I mean. You should have seen him 
jump when I said it.” 


289 


GRANNIE 


It was all over — the acute anxiety, and the 
danger. The doctor said the child would do well 
now so long as no complications set in — and it 
was unlikely they should, Dr. Smart said, knowing 
Spats. 

In the evening I stole into the library to see 
what John was doing. He was asleep. At his 
feet sat the two little girls, sobered with terror, 
watching him as he slept. On his lap lay his black 
spaniel, also asleep. I put my finger to my lips 
and the little girls nodded. I looked at their 
father; they pointed to the dog and smiled — wan 
little smiles, and they blinked their lashless 
eyes, poor little things. They were so ugly, but so 
dear. 

As I left the room I met Cynthia in the passage. 
“Where’s John?” she said. 

I pointed to the door I had just closed. 

“And the children?” 

“The children are there, Boots and Shoes, and 
the spaniel Spats is on John’s knee asleep.” 

It was only then Cynthia broke down. 

It is often said by the young that the old do 
not feel sorrow keenly. It is perhaps that the old 
290 


GRANNIE 


sorrow with hope. In separation they have this 
comfort — that the time of waiting cannot be long, 
and it makes all the difference. 

But old as I am, I found a sick child shattering 
enough to my old heart, and when with my own 
eyes I had seen hers closed in a beautiful sleep 
and the flush of health returning to her cheeks, I 
craved leave to go home and rest. Cynthia ten- 
derly gave it to me, although I doubt that she 
was ever less willing to part from her old mother. 
And Benny and I went home, and as I looked at 
her I saw what she had been through, and as she 
looked away from me she said, “It’s old Speedwell 
and his garden you want, ma’am!” And it 
was. 

“A-penny-inside-us was it, ma’am/’ said old 
Speedwell as he stood with his foot on his spade 
ready to dig so soon as I had done havering, “well, 
it’s a queer disease and our fathers and mothers 
died without it fast enough . . . but a little child 
that’s bad, we can’t spare them as we get 
on.” And Speedwell to his digging. 

Claudia was distressed that I did not write my 
book directly I got home. She showed a sudden 
and great interest in it. She even went to the 

291 


GR ANN IE 


length of reading some of it. She owned to skim- 
ming it, and when she had skimmed it she closed 
it and looked at me curiously. 

“So that is what life is to you, is it?” 

I said it was something of what life was to me. 

“To mention village things only . . . you say 
nothing about the churchwarden business?” 

Now the “churchwarden business,” as Claudia 
chose to call it, had resulted in the resignation of 
the Vicar, the estrangement of most good friends 
in the village, and had stood out as something of 
importance in our lives. 

“I imagine Putts must have been here,” I 
pleaded. 

Idly Claudia turned the manuscript pages. 
“The Morocco question? I see nothing about 
that,” she appraised me with her calm, critical 
eyes. 

“Wait ... I think Bounce had measles just at 
that time.” 

“Then the . . . Far East question?” 

“Patricia's engagement came nearer,” I said, 
unashamed. 

“The Home Rule Bill?” 

“My Home Ruler got engaged,” I gasped, and 
292 


GRANNIE 

Claudia flung the book to the winds and her arms 
round my neck. 

“You absurd — most absurd of all grand- 
mothers, ” she cried, which shows she doesn’t in 
the least understand them. I am very much as 
other grandmothers. 


293 


XXIII 


Patricia is married. 

On a cold winter’s afternoon I stepped from the 
train on to the little platform at Winthorpe sta- 
tion. Even the fresh ping in the air seemed a 
caress. And the bare branches of trees swaying 
in the breeze seemed arms waving a welcome to 
me — an old friend. 

The memory of the many times I had come 
home just like this, when Winthorpe was still 
mine, came back to me with a rush. If there is 
great sorrow in leaving a home one loves, there 
is great joy in coming back and finding a son 
happy in it. This joy I felt as I stepped into the 
brougham that was waiting for me. Another joy 
was to feel a little hand steal into mine out of the 
darkness — not a dream hand, as so many hands 
are at my age, but a very real hand and just 
sticky enough to proclaim itself the hand of Putts. 

“Is Mrs. Scroggins at home?” he asked, settling 
down to business. 

“No,” I said, as it was my bounden duty to say. 

294 


GRANNIE 


“Mr. Scroggins ?” 

“No, but — wait till I get my glove off.” 

I suppose every grandmother worthy of the 
name plays “Mrs. Scroggins.” If not, then must 
she begin and instantly of her finger and thumb 
make a circle, into which her grandson will pop 
his finger and say, “Is Mrs. Scroggins at home?” 
The grandmother must say No to all and every 
inquiry respecting any member of the family, it 
being necessary to the good playing of the game 
that the Scroggins family should always be out, 
because when the grandson chooses he will say 
“Good morning,” and will withdraw his finger, and 
it is the grandmother’s duty to catch it. That 
she will not be able to do so I can tell her at once 
and save her the mortification of disappointment. 
Also she must be prepared for a kind of paralysis 
that will seize her when her grandson says “Good 
morning.” But let her take courage in the certain 
knowledge that the affection will pass, leaving her 
quite well and strong and able to play the game 
for many a day to come — provided she has grand- 
children young enough to enjoy it. 

I played Mrs. Scroggins for a mile or two of 
our drive, and not having once caught Putts, he 
asked me if I would like to put on my glove . . . 

295 


GRANNIE 


I might if I liked . . . and had I expected him to 
come and meet me? 

I said such a thing had entered my head. 

“You mean you thought I would ?” 

I said I had thought it possible. 

“Well, it was a pretty near shave.” 

“How?” 

“Well . . . you see I was to — if I was good.” 

“And you very nearly weren’t?” 

“I should just think I wasn’t!” 

“What made you good?” 

“Well, Patsy looked at me . . . you know! 
She’s going to be married from our house.” 

“Yes, I know.” 

“Of course, that’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?” 
Then he added, “Heaps of people are coming.” 

Patricia was married all on a winter’s day. I 
saw her standing by the side of her young hus- 
band. I heard the gentle voice of old Mr. Good- 
heart proclaim them man and wife in the sight 
of God, and I saw them pass down the aisle, 
through the porch, out into the little churchyard. 
I caught the look Patricia gave Ian as she paused 
there for one second, and I knew it was of her 
Grannie-Man she was thinking, and I blessed her 
296 


GRANNIE 


for the thought that was uppermost in my mind. 
How he would have loved to see her happiness. 

I stood on the doorstep at Winthorpe and 
watched Patricia, a bride, drive away from the 
home to which, as a bride, I had come. 

Far into the night I sat and watched the young 
people dancing in the big hall. I saw beautiful 
girls and splendid young men. (Cynthia says I 
think all girls beautiful and all young men splen- 
did — and she is right. Youth to me is both splen- 
did and beautiful — and most wonderfully kind.) 
Many of the boys and girls stopped to speak to 
me, and one girl, prettier than the rest, enter- 
tained me charmingly for quite five minutes. 
Then she whispered to a young man who was 
passing, “Please come and talk to this dear old 
lady, Pve been so good,” and I, knowing that she 
wanted the young man to dance with her and not 
to talk to me, said, “You have been good, now 
dance with him. I am most grateful to you,” as 
indeed I was. 

“I loved it,” she said blushing, and I knew she 
had, because she had told me, in those few min- 
utes, that she was in love, and no girl finds time 
so spent dull. But she was just showing off to the 
young man and she knew I knew it. As she 

297 


GRANNIE 


danced away she whispered, “You angel,” and I 
was pleased . . . but quite suddenly I felt rather 
lonely and certainly older than usual and a little 
sadder, which was selfish of me when every one 
was so happy. I went upstairs and instinctively 
found my hand on the schoolroom door. 

I opened the door expecting to find the room 
empty. It was not. 

Crouching in front of the faintly flickering fire 
I saw the figure of a boy. Dozens of times in 
years gone by I had so found my boys, nursing 
in solitude their sorrows — the death perhaps of a 
favourite dog, of all sorrows the hardest to bear, 
an examination not passed, a love affair even. On 
this boy’s head I now laid my hand, as I had done 
many times before. But the face that looked up 
was not a boy’s face, but Dick’s, worn with un- 
happiness, drawn with misery. 

“Richard, my son, is this right?” I asked, and 
for answer he took my hand and held it against 
his cheek. 

“Please leave me, mother,” he said, “darling 
mother ... I want to be alone. You will under- 
stand. ... If I could have any one it would be 
you!” 

And I left him. What he had been as a boy he 

298 


GRANNIE 


was as a man. He had taken his troubles hardly 
then. He took them hardly now. And his sor- 
rows came to him through love now, as they did 
then. 

I went to the wide landing to watch, from the 
window, the day break and to keep vigil with 
Dick. And as I watched I thought of my chil- 
dren and of their children. My Claudia was mar- 
ried. Her strength had grown stronger in gentle- 
ness, as I had thought it would. I had lived to see 
my Patricia married, for which I had prayed. It 
was unlikely I should live to see Bounce’s wed- 
ding, and Bounce married was a picture so ridicu- 
lous that it dissolved in tears of laughter. . . . 

Then from looking forward I looked back. In 
my long life I had known great love ; I had greatly 
loved. But the time had come when I knew that 
if the door I had once wished left ajar opened, I 
should pass through it unafraid. And those of 
my children who love their husbands will under- 
stand that the separation has been over long, and 
will not grieve for me in my happiness. 

As the dark night gave way to the dim, grey 
dawn I seemed to come right up to that closed 
door. I put out my hands and gently I pushed it. 
It was fast shut. Over the surface of the door I 

299 


GRANNIE 


ran my hands, and I found that on the inside of 
the door there was no latch. I knew then that 
it could only be opened from the Other Side, that 
only by violence can we open it, and I was content 
to wait. There might still be something for me 
to do. 

There was. A pair of arms were round my neck 
— pink-sleeved arms — and Putts said, “Grannie 
Patts, what are you doing?” 

I could not tell him I was lost in self-pity — 
revelling in it! 

“You promised to tuck me up and you never 
came and the night is gone. It is morning. . . . 
Look!” 

I looked. It was morning, and in the distance 
I heard the schoolroom door open and shut. 

“Grannie Patts, do you hear me speaking to 
you? Twice I’ve spoken.” 

“Yes, darling darling.” 

“Well, are you going to tuck me up like you 
promised?” 

“Of course I am, and perhaps, Putts, I shall 
dance at your wedding.” 

“MeV said Putts scornfully, “catch me mar- 
rying.” 

There was a pause; Putts was thinking. 

300 


GRANNIE 


“Grannie Patts, Bounce says people can have 
a wedding cake without being married. They 
can’t, can they?” 

“They can eat a wedding cake, but not have 
it.” 

“Not a whole one, can they? But what’s the 
diffrunce?” 

“Ask Bounce.” 

“She’s in bed.” 

“Wait till morning.” 

“It is,” he said triumphantly, pointing to the 
east. 

“Well, what’s to be done, Putts?” 

“You say ... I would rather you,” and he laid 
his little face against mine and straightway all 
wounds were healed. 

“You want me then, Putts?” I said, putting my 
arms round him. 

“How d’you mean?” he asked, wrinkling his 
nose, hating, man-like, to be made to show his 
feelings. 

“You love me, Putts?” I asked, ashamed. 

“Of course I do,” he wriggled away. Then 
coming back he put his arm through mine, “Next 
to mummy . . . most of ev’ry one in the whole 

301 


GRANNIE 


world . . . except daddy and baby and all the 
others.” 

And with that I was hugely content. 

A completely happy woman can be a wife, may 
be a mother, but must be a grandmother ... if 
possible to Putts. 


302 


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By S. R. CROCKETT 

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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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Opening on the veldt in Africa with a situation of striking 
power and originality, the scene, in the course of the plot, 
shifts to other lands, bringing in a variety of well-drawn and 
interesting men and women. Like A. E. W. Mason’s “The 
Four Feathers,” to which it bears a slight resemblance, “The 
Reconnaissance” is a story of courage, raising in perplexing 
fashion the question as to whether the winner of the Victoria 
Cross is a hero or a coward, and answering it in a way likely 
to be satisfactory to all. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 


NEW MACMILLAN FICTION 


The Treasure 

By KATHLEEN NORRIS 

Author of “Mother,” “The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne,” etc. 

With illustrations. Decorated cloth, i2mo. $1.00 net. 

Stories of the home circle Mrs. Norris has made peculiarly her own. 
Whether the scene be laid in the parlor or the kitchen, whether the char- 
acter be mistress or maid, she writes with an understanding and sympathy 
which compel admiration. In the present novel Mrs. Norris chronicles 
the experiences of one family in trying to solve the servant problem! 
What they do, with the results, not only provide reading that is amusing 
but will be found by many who look beneath the surface, highly sug- 
gestive and significant. As in all of Mrs. Norris’s work, the atmosphere 
of the home has been wonderfully caught; throughout are those intimate 
little touches which make the incidents described seem almost a part of 
the reader’s own life, so close to reality, so near to the everyday hap- 
penings of everybody does Mrs. Norris bring them. 


A Stepdaughter of the Prairies 

By MARGARET LYNN 

Cloth, i2mo. $1.35 net. 

Many people have written of the prairies but few from Miss Lynn’s 
viewpoint. It is not of the vastness nor of the silences nor of the great 
unpeopled wastes that she writes primarily, but of all these things as 
they touch the life of the people. The prairie folks she has uppermost 
in her mind’s eye. It is this human note which distinguishes her nar- 
rative and gives to it a compelling interest. The sketches of the day 
to day existence of the members of the family whose experiences in this 
far western country are chronicled have not only the appeal that comes 
from the reading of that which is, because of subject matter, attention- 
arresting, but further the satisfaction resulting from good writing. It 
is not necessary in order to derive pleasure from this book to have a 
keen appreciation of literature; on the other hand, one who does have 
such an appreciation will be much gratified at the beauty, the fullness 
and the fluency of Margaret Lynn’s prose. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 























































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